Hard Work

This welcome collection encapsulates the evolving thought of one of American labor history's most prominent scholars. Melvyn Dubofsky's accessible style and historical reach mark his work as required reading for students and scholars alike.

Hard Work juxtaposes Dubofsky's early and recent writings, forcefully suggesting how present and past interact in the writing of history. In addition to solid essays on various aspects of labor history, including western working-class radicalism, U.S. labor history in transnational and comparative settings, and the impact of technological change on the American worker movements, this volume provides an invaluable "I was there" perspective on the academic and political climate of the 1960s and early 1970s and on the development of labor history as a discipline over the past four decades.

An exploration of some of American labor's central themes by a giant in the field, Hard Work is also a compelling narrative of how one scholar was drawn to labor history as a subject of study and how his approach to it changed over time.