Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by carmenx9
No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age by Jane F. McAlevey
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.25
Americans stop being afraid to say communism challenge!!!
5* for ideas, 2* for execution. What frustrates me is an inability to engage with socialsm and leftist history - including how the US got to where it did with unions - that leaves gaps and assumptions in the work. Definitely best to read the case study chapters and ignore the convoluted intro (which seems to start in the middle of an argument) and conclusion. And in these case studies, the most striking is the Smithfield plant victory in the deeply non-unionised Deep South whose union leader was an avowed self-proclaimed leftist... in this regard, McAlevey's obsession with ideological neutrality feels a bit half-baked! I have heard nothing but brilliant things about the woman (gone too soon) and her work as a speaker and organiser: perhaps writing was not her strong suit (there are lots of run-on sentences and strange balances of academic citations with looser interpretations), perhaps she was too close to the world to see her blindnesses amidst her passion and knowledge, and it seems this might not have been the book of hers to start with, but I think there might be clearer histories and guidebooks out there.
5* for ideas, 2* for execution. What frustrates me is an inability to engage with socialsm and leftist history - including how the US got to where it did with unions - that leaves gaps and assumptions in the work. Definitely best to read the case study chapters and ignore the convoluted intro (which seems to start in the middle of an argument) and conclusion. And in these case studies, the most striking is the Smithfield plant victory in the deeply non-unionised Deep South whose union leader was an avowed self-proclaimed leftist... in this regard, McAlevey's obsession with ideological neutrality feels a bit half-baked! I have heard nothing but brilliant things about the woman (gone too soon) and her work as a speaker and organiser: perhaps writing was not her strong suit (there are lots of run-on sentences and strange balances of academic citations with looser interpretations), perhaps she was too close to the world to see her blindnesses amidst her passion and knowledge, and it seems this might not have been the book of hers to start with, but I think there might be clearer histories and guidebooks out there.