Against a backdrop of seven hundred years of bourgeois struggle, eminent lawyer and educator, Michael E. Tigar, develops a Marxist theory of law and jurisprudence based upon the Western experience. This well-researched and documented study traces the role of law and lawyers in the European bourgeoisie's conquest of power-the first such history in the English language-and in the process, contradicts the analyses of such major figures as R.H. Tawney and Max Weber. Using a wide range of primary sources, Tigar demonstrates that the legal theory of the insurgent bourgeoisie predated the Protestant Reformation and was a major ideological ingredient of the bourgeois revolution. | more…
This story of the birth and infancy of the United Auto Workers, told by two participants, shows how the gains workers made were neither easy nor inevitable—not automatic—but required strategic and tactical sophistication as well as concerted action. | more…
In the euphoria that followed the departure of Haiti’s hated dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, most Haitian and foreign analysts treated the regimes of the two Duvaliers, father and son, as a historical nightmare created by the malevolent minds of the leaders and their supporters. Yet the crisis, economic and political, that faces this small Caribbean nation did not begin with the dictatorship, and is far from being solved, despite its departure from the scene. In this fascinating study, Haitian-born Michel-Rolph Trouillot examines the mechanisms through which the Duvaliers ruthlessly won and then held onto power for twenty-nine years. | more…
Under the Raj explores the world of the prostitute, seeking to understand the culture of the trade and its impact on society, in the changing reality of nineteenth century Bengal. Sumanta Banerjee outlines the class structure that emerged within the profession, examines popular perceptions of prostitution and analyzes the complex relationship between the newly educated Bengali bhadralok society and the prostitute community. Banerjee gives voice to the prostitutes themselves, from which we hear their songs, letters, and writings, collected and reproduced from both oral tradition and printed sources. | more…
In this clearly written and accessible book, John Bellamy Foster grounds his discussion of the global environmental crisis in the inherently destructive nature of our world economic system. Rejecting both individualistic solutions and policies that tinker at the margins, Foster calls for a fundamental reorganization of production on a social basis so as to make possible a sustainable and ecological economy. | more…
In 1902, the Rationalist Press Association issued a pamphlet entitled A New Catechism. Like the classic Roman Catholic statement of belief on which it was modeled, the document comprised a long list of questions and answers. However, the faith which it rehearsed was not belief in Christianity, but rather belief in secular human reason. The pamphlet opened with a stirring dedication:
We baptize the twentieth century—in the name of Peace, Liberty, and Progress! We christen her—the People’s Century. We ask of the new century a Religion without superstition; Politics without war; Science and the arts without materialism; and wealth without misery or wrong!
Many people from divergent ethnic backgrounds, speaking various languages, and possessing different cultures now share a common experience of inequality in the United States. Yet there is an absence of unity among these constituencies, in part because their leaders are imprisoned ideologically and theoretically by the assumptions and realities of the past. | more…
The first comprehensive history of American labor leadership in the twentieth century, this is a tale of tremendous hope and appalling treachery, stunning accomplishment and dramatic defeat. | more…
Available for the first time in paperback, Meatpackers provides an important window into race and racism in the American workplace. In their own words, male and female packinghouse workers in the Midwest—mostly African-American—talk of their experiences on the shop floor and picket lines. They tell of their fight between the 1930s and 1960s for economic advancement and racial equality. In cities like Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, Fort Worth, and Waterloo, Iowa, meatpackers built a union that would defend their interests as workers—and their civil rights. | more…
Within a year after the triumphal entry into Havana at the beginning of 1959, Che Guevara began to set down the history of the guerrilla war. Fearful that the events would “dissolve into the past” and that an important part of the history of America would be lost, he urged other leaders of the Revolution to do the same, asking only “that the narrator be strictly truthful.” | more…
This historical work, released on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War, overturns the conventional wisdom on Korea. Official U.S. history portrays the Korean War as a notable example of America’s selfless commitment to democracy. According to Cold War history, South Korea emerged from the conflict to create a prosperous and dynamic economy, while U.S. troops served as the nation’s peacekeepers. This book, in a wide canvass of the historical background, contests those claims. | more…
Town-building in the Great Plains gets a fresh examination in Harris Stone’s final book. Form and consequences of the inhabitation of the plains landscape are explored, from the rural roads and farms to industrial parks. Beautifully hand-lettered and illustrated throughout, this thought-provoking work will appeal to architects, planners, historians, cultural geographers, and anyone interested in the interplay between people and vernacular form. | more…
