Labor History

With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, our society, and the family. It underpins our finances and our sense of meaning in life. Given the overriding importance of work, we need to recognize a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work. Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations.

This volume commences with the Great Depression and takes us to the mid-1980s. As the author of Basic Economics, Carson is well-suited to diagnose the causes of the stock market crash and the years of economic depression that followed. Further discussions include the New Deal, the start of Social Security, World War II, the Cold War, Welfare, black activism, Vietnam, the rise of the Conservative movement, Nixon and Watergate, the Carter presidency, and the beginning of the Reagan years.

From the dark arts of the dirt units to the role of billionaire Clive Palmer, this is the untold story of an election debacle. The Labor Party was the unbeatable favourite to win the 2019 election right up until the polls closed and voters delivered the surprise verdict. If the results staggered pundits, they also shocked Bill Shorten and his frontbench, who had spent the final weeks of the campaign carefully planning for their first days in office. Party Animals uncovers the secret history of a Labor fiasco, the untold story behind Scott Morrison's miracle.

The struggles and victories of the UAW form an important chapter in the story of American democracy. American Vanguard is the first and only history of the union available for both general and academic audiences.

The French painter Jean Hélion’s unique and deeply moving account of his experiences in Nazi prisoner-of-war camps prefigures the even darker stories that would emerge from the concentration camps. This serious adventure tale begins with Hélion’s infantry platoon fleeing from the German army and warplanes as they advanced through France in the early days of the war. The soldiers chant as they march and run, “They shall not have me!” but are quickly captured and sent to hard labor.

America searched for an answer to "The Labor Question" during the Progressive Era in an effort to avoid the unrest and violence that flared so often in the late 19th and early 20th century.

In this account, Gottlieb Mittelberger reveals the plight of poor German families who migrated to America in the 18th century. It was normal at the time for poor Europeans to fund their journey to the New World by agreeing to a period of indentured servitude. Yet what Mittleberger observed was more akin to slavery: workers were auctioned off upon arrival with no formal contract. This enlightening record reveals a darker side to early American history.

Where do you turn when you can trust no one? World War II is over, but the fighting in Eastern Europe continues as Lithuanian resistance fighters wreak havoc on the Russian army. Colonel Karmachov, a Soviet military officer, is incensed by the tiny yet deadly resistance. Anxious to destroy them, he forces a young Lithuanian, Anton Dubus, to join the rebels as a spy. In Book Two of the Amber War series, resistance fighter Ludmelia Kudirka faces treachery as she works with Polish partisans to get a man through the Iron Curtain in a last-ditch effort to gain help from the West and keep the ...

From the author of the award-winning Waiting on Zapote Street comes a story based on true events. In 1960’s central Cuba, a young middle-class woman’s life is interrupted as she finds herself a victim in what will quickly become a hurricane of world politics and idealistic dogma. *** “Betty Viamontes’s books are not intended to be classic literature. Instead they are deliberately simple, about real people caught in an historical cataclysm. Like most holocaust memoirs, their strength lies in their simplicity. Ms. Viamontes tells a simple story of normal people, allowing the reader's ...

Field has spent his adult life fighting against poverty in Britain, through parliament and through his strong personal influence. Poverty for him has injustice at its root and as he explains in this book, he has found allies on all sides of the political spectrum. He was appointed by Tony Blair to be the Secretary of State for Pensions, but the reforms he advocated were so radical and essentially just, that Tony Blair could not contemplate them and Field stood down. Previously he had been Chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee under John Major.

Theatre has long been an art form of subterfuge and concealment. Working in the Wings: New Perspectives on Theatre History and Labor, edited by Elizabeth A. Osborne and Christine Woodworth, brings attention to what goes on behind-the-scenes, challenging and revising our understanding of work, theatre, and history.

From the number-one international best-selling author of The Revenant - the book that inspired the award-winning movie - comes the remarkable true story of the worst mining disaster in American history. In 1917, the lives of a company of miners changed forever when the underground labyrinth of tunnels in which they worked burst into flames. Within an hour, more than 400 men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days, 164 of them would be dead.