An excellent source for US 20th century history!

books:


	• Who Built America? Working People and the Nation's Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 2: Since ... Nelson Lichtenstein, Susan Strasser, ... Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000 - 786 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An excellent resource

When I saw this book, I bought it straightaway, because labor history gets short-shrift in American society. I'm sorry to see it's out-of-stock, but am unsurprised.

While this book is fairly mainstream in its orientation, it is very readable and thorough, covering the struggle of working people through the late 1800s to the early 1990s.

I consider this book a good starting point for people interested in working people's history. What makes it especially rich is the narrative flow and personal stories that appear throughout it, and the sidebars with songs and other miscellaneous information. This is the way a history book should be written.

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A labor perspective to American History

I think it is okay to have a specific perspective to U.S. History as long as it is stated within a specific discipline such as Social History of the U.S. or an Economic History of the United States. This book is somewhat misleading because it gives a hint of what this book is about a history of labor in the United States and its relationships to the economic forces of the various time periods it covers. That to me, is in the domain of Economic History of the United States. This book basically is an introduction to the economic history of the United States, eventhough, that is really not explicityly stated. It does do a good job of providing detailed descriptions of labor history in the U.S. But I do not think it should be used in a classroom where the students have not have had a generalized introduction into U.S. history; unless of course, the trend is to now slice American history, into specific topics, and provide that one specific aspect as a introduction to American history.

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Who Built America Vol 2

The book takes a completely different view of our nation's history from the late 1800's through the late 19000's than the average history text book most of us read in high school. Side bars and tid bits add anecdotal highlights to the information covered in that section or chapter which keep it relevant and interesting. It was very refreshing to see things from the bottom up. i.e. What was happening with this or that wave of immigration that caused the City's and Urban areas to change in this way, that caused the political and religious environment to change in that way, that caused this person to be elected, that caused this law to be passed, that caused this backlash, that led to this conflict, that led to this resolution. Instead of - this war was faught and this official was elected and this country won. It is biased towards labor and labor's role in building this country, so if you want traditional conservative history, this isn't the book for you. But if you like to read some of the stuff they don't tell you in high-school history 101, this is it. I'll never look at labor disputes or the immigration question the same way again. I came away from the book with a greater understanding and retained more of how we got to the 21st century in America from the 19th century.

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An excellent source for US 20th century history!

Who Built America? Is an excellent look at US history in the 20th century from the foundation up. The authors provide relevant and insightful information about immigration, the working class, unions, and the political and military events that shaped our country. The events are thoroughly discussed in terms of cause and effect, and followed through with anecdotal side bars and highilights. Because the text follows a contextual historical line, the information is readily understood and retained. Who Built America? was used as the assigned text in a US History class I took. While I read it willingly as assigned in the class, it is a book I have returned to on numerous occasions since. I highly recommend Who Built America? for everyone and anyone who would like to know not just who was elected when, and what wars were fought with whom, but why and how it effects every one of us.

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At last, American history is more than presidents and robber barons, elections and battles, names and dates to memorize. Who Built America? is about working Americans -- artisans, servants, slaves, farm families, laborers, women working in the home, factory hands, and office clerks -- who played crucial roles in shaping modern America: what they thought, what they did, and what happened to them.

The central focus of this two-volume history of the United States is the changing nature of the work that built, sustained, and transformed American society over the course of almost four centuries. It depicts the ways working people affected and were affected by the economic, social, cultural, and political processes that together make up the national experience. The result is a path-breaking integration of the history of community, family, gender roles, race, and ethnicity into the more familiar history of U.S. politics and economic development.

Volume One takes the reader through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the great railroad strike of 1877. Volume Two continues the story from the expansion of industrial capitalism during the Gilded Age and the rise of movements of opposition, through the decades of world war, depression, and industrial unionism, to the dramatic growth of U.S. military and economic power in the postwar era and the continuing struggle over the meaning of America in the contemporary era.

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