From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend : A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States

Hailed in a starred Publishers Weekly review as a work of "impressive even-handedness and analytic acuity . . . that gracefully handles a broad range of subject matter," From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend is the first comprehensive look at American history through the prism of working people. From indentured servants and slaves in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley, the book "[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor" ( Library Journal ). From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend also "thoroughly includes the contributions of women, Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, and minorities, and considers events often ignored in other histories," writes Booklist, which adds that "thirty pages of stirring drawings by ‘comic journalist’ Joe Sacco add an unusual dimension to the book." Newly updated: "An enjoyable introduction to American working-class history." ? The American Prospect Praised for its "impressive even-handedness", From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend has set the standard for viewing American history through the prism of working people ( Publishers Weekly , starred review). From indentured servants and slaves in seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley, the book "[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor", enlivened by illustrations from the celebrated comics journalist Joe Sacco ( Library Journal ). Now, the authors have added a wealth of fresh analysis of labor's role in American life, with new material on sex workers, disability issues, labor's relation to the global justice movement and the immigrants' rights movement, the 2005 split in the AFL-CIO and the movement civil wars that followed, and the crucial emergence of worker centers and their relationships to unions. With two entirely new chapters?one on global developments such as offshoring and a second on the 2016 election and unions' relationships to Trump?this is an "extraordinarily fine addition to U.S. history [that] could become an evergreen . . . comparable to Howard Zinn's award-winning A People's History of the United States " ( Publishers Weekly ). "A marvelously informed, carefully crafted, far-ranging history of working people." ?Noam Chomsky "From the folks Who Brought You the Weekend is an history of labor in the United States, capturing the full range of working people's struggles, from indentured servants and slaves in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley."--Jacket