Prisoners of the American Dream
Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class

A very engaging, provocative analysis on why America has never really had a mass labor party, unlike other Western democracies. It goes deep into labor history, economics, politics, industrial policy, military spending, the rise of a new-money rentier class in the sun belt, and so much more, to try......more

A remarkable book on the labour/capital relation in America throughout the fraught history of large-scale industrial capitalism (c. 1843-1979). Mike Davis combs through the tangled web of American labour history: from the early agitations of labour abolitionism, the formation of the Knights of Labou......more

Fascinating and important subject matter but full of inaccessible over-the-top academic language and obscure foreign loan-phrases to the extent that it almost seems as if you're expected to know French, Spanish and German as well as English (I found myself looking up another word every few minutes,......more

*Makes a rather coherent case for why America didn't follow the template 19th century European Marxists thought it would, and also gives a very novel and well argued portrayal of the actual state of American politics in the mid 1980s. The stuff on black struggle as the key issue of American society i......more

I will never look at American politics the same way again after reading this book. This is like the adult version of Zinn's people's history, with a Brumaire like grasp of how class blocs work. Also absolutely mortifying the political parallels between the Reagan-era and today. A little bit more emp......more