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How General Strike Rhetoric Became A City-Wide Reality: New Politics reviews Cal Winslow’s “Radical Seattle”

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Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919
280 pp, $26 pbk, ISBN 978-1-58367-852-7
By Cal Winslow

FORTHCOMING

Reviewed by Steve Early

“Calls for a general strike have long been a staple of ‘resolutionary activity’ on the U.S. left. During moments of crisis and militancy—from the mass firing of air traffic controllers in 1981 to Occupy Wall Street and last winter’s federal government shutdown—rousing speeches are invariably made and motions duly adopted, which urge all workers to walk out in protest. ¶ Such efforts represent a triumph of hope over experience. In our entire history, only a handful of labor disputes have mushroomed into broader, city-wide work stoppages. On the ‘left coast,’ this has occurred, most recently, in San Francisco in 1934 and Oakland twelve years later….”

Read the review at New Politics

Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919

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