Left Eye on Books, December 13, 2011, Tuesday

Left Eye on Books

December 13, 2011, Tuesday

Left Eye on Books (full article)

New Books Examine the Trajectory of Labor in the United States in the Seventies

“Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class” authored by Jefferson R. Cowie, professor of history at Cornell. Cowie includes considerable cultural history in his discussion of the challenges faced by the working class in the period. Writing in New Politics, Steve Collatrella praises the book for transcending the current academic sub-specialties that have undermined labor history, declaring that the book “might be the most groundbreaking and original national history of a working class since E.P. Thompson’s ‘Making of the English Working Class’.” Collatrella mildly faults the book for its adherence to the “somewhat arbitrary border of the calendar line” between the ’70s and ’80s, which means the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike of 1981 is not included, despite its relevance.