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A review by your_fave_maeve
A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis
2.5
I haven't read any history in a while and wanted to learn about the American labor movement. Sadly this book didn't really provide much insight that I can say I walked away with having read it.
I like the concept of the book and the goal of tracing American history through labor struggles as they intersect with racial/gender struggles. That said, I think the book falls into a really bad pattern of just spitting dates and facts at you. It feels very 'this happened in this year and this happened in response' with low amounts of analysis or buffer material to help you digest it. To the extent the book had meta-analysis of the history, I wasn't suuuuuuper impressed by it. A lot of it felt very much like the type of stuff a historically-literate DSA member would write. Very mic-droppy lines like "even then race divided the working class movement."
I think the book tried to strike a middle ground and fell a little flat. As an organizer who is already interested in left politics and knows ~some~ about American labor history, this just scratched the surface and didn't tell me anything exceptionally new. It also reads extremely dry and lacks much substantive analysis beyond "god racism has been a tough thing for related social movements to grapple with." The conclusion which leans heavily on electoralism as a strategy for the future (specifically naming the Bernie campaign) has also aged very poorly post-2020, and I think to an extent shows a liberal misunderstanding of the state's role in policing labor historically.
This is maybe a better read if you have extremely little/no exposure to American labor history and didn't realize how violent it is and that the violence originates in the state- the book succeeds in getting that much across. That said, I think there might be more engaging places for someone to get that information.
I like the concept of the book and the goal of tracing American history through labor struggles as they intersect with racial/gender struggles. That said, I think the book falls into a really bad pattern of just spitting dates and facts at you. It feels very 'this happened in this year and this happened in response' with low amounts of analysis or buffer material to help you digest it. To the extent the book had meta-analysis of the history, I wasn't suuuuuuper impressed by it. A lot of it felt very much like the type of stuff a historically-literate DSA member would write. Very mic-droppy lines like "even then race divided the working class movement."
I think the book tried to strike a middle ground and fell a little flat. As an organizer who is already interested in left politics and knows ~some~ about American labor history, this just scratched the surface and didn't tell me anything exceptionally new. It also reads extremely dry and lacks much substantive analysis beyond "god racism has been a tough thing for related social movements to grapple with." The conclusion which leans heavily on electoralism as a strategy for the future (specifically naming the Bernie campaign) has also aged very poorly post-2020, and I think to an extent shows a liberal misunderstanding of the state's role in policing labor historically.
This is maybe a better read if you have extremely little/no exposure to American labor history and didn't realize how violent it is and that the violence originates in the state- the book succeeds in getting that much across. That said, I think there might be more engaging places for someone to get that information.