Philip Dray is the author of At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His book Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
“Insightful. . . . An exhaustive and surprisingly lively account of
the integral role labor has played in American life.”
—The Plain Dealer
“Spectacular. . . . Dray’s chronicle reads like a novel, filled
with dramatic acts of barbarism and bravery.”
—Maureen Corrigan’s Favorite Books of the Year, Fresh Air, NPR
“Engrossing. . . . A memorable and accurate history, one that
reminds us of the honorable part labor played in the quest for what
its advocates grandly but not inaccurately called ‘industrial
democracy.’”
—The Washington Post
“Ambitious. . . . It’s a big colorful tale, and Dray has a gift for
characterization as he tells the stories of dramatic figures such
as Mother Jones and Jimmy Hoffa, and dramas such as the Haymarket
Riot and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.”
—Chicago Tribune
“One of the great values of this beautifully written book is that
it shows the centrality of labor and working-class organizations to
America itself. . . . Dray comes into the ring with fists
flying, and he doesn’t let up for a moment. If you love Howard
Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States you’ll probably love
Dray’s history, too.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Dray provides a grand context for thinking about labor-management
relations in a society beset by bad will within millions of
workplaces. . . . He is a refreshing chronicler of history.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A stirring study. . . . Packed with vivid characters and dramatic
scenes, Dray’s fine recap of a neglected but vital tradition has
much to say about labors current straits.”
—The Washington Examiner
“An exemplary history of the American labor movement, from its
time-shrouded beginnings to its murky present . . . in the
tradition of Eric Foner and Studs Terkel.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“The unending struggle between unions and big business has never
been more vividly told. Philip Dray is a marvelous story teller who
brings history memorably alive, and you will not soon forget the
tales of murder and greed, commitment and sacrifice, that fill
these pages. But this is more than history; the compelling saga of
labor as a crucible for social change should prompt some honest and
hard debate about what’s happening to working men and women
today.”
—Bill Moyers
“Sobering. . . . This unusually interesting book delivers on the
promise of its subtitle. . . . [Dray] offers a balanced and
comprehensive coverage of a force for American progress that is now
in danger of becoming a relic of our storied past.”
—America Magazine
“Philip Dray’s big and bold history of organized labor in America
splendidly retells a story—or a multitude of stories—badly in need
of retelling. The labor movement’s decline in recent decades has
accompanied a great national amnesia about all that the movement
achieved for the nation. That amnesia threatens those achievements,
so Dray’s book is timely as well as gripping.”
—Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy
"Any union leader working to define and strengthen the role of
organized labor in the 21st century must read There Is Power in a
Union, a comprehensive and fascinating history of the American
labor movement."
—Michael Winship, President, Writers Guild of America, East
(AFL-CIO)
"The American labor movement has been losing ground for three
decades but its history is heroic and inspiring - full of scenes of
dramatic, often bloody conflict. It would be hard to imagine a
better account of those episodes of collective effort, personal
courage, and fierce resistance than this engrossing narrative."
—Morris Dickstein, author of Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural
History of the Great Depression
"From the Lowell Mills of antebellum America to the global assembly
lines of our own day, Philip Dray offers a panoramic narrative of
the work and struggle, the triumph and tragedy, that has been the
fate of trade unionism in the United States. His lively and
insightful history belongs on the shelf and in the hands of all
those who want to organize ourselves out of the social and economic
predicament in which the nation now finds itself."
—Nelson Lichtenstein, Professor of History and Director of the
Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy at the
University of California, Santa Barbara
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