The Southern Key

Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

Michael Goldfield (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

432 Seiten

2020
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-007932-1 (ISBN)

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The golden key to understanding the last 75 years of American political development, the eminent labor relations scholar Michael Goldfield argues, lies in the contests between labor and capital in the American South during the 1930s and 1940s. Labor agitation and unionization efforts in the South in the New Deal era were extensive and bitterly fought, and ranged across all of the major industries of the region.

In The Southern Key, Goldfield charts the rise of labor activism in each and then examines how and why labor organizers struggled so mightily in the region. Drawing from meticulous and unprecedented archival material and detailed data on four core industries-textiles, timber, coal mining, and steel-he argues that much of what is important in American politics and society today was largely shaped by the successes and failures of the labor movements of the 1930s and 1940s. Most notably, Goldfield shows how the broad-based failure to organize the South during this period made it what it is today. He contends that this early defeat for labor unions not only contributed to the exploitation of race and right-wing demagoguery in the South, but has also led to a decline in unionization, growing economic inequality, and an inability to confront and dismantle white supremacy throughout the US.

A sweeping account of Southern political economy in the New Deal era, The Southern Key challenges the established historiography to tell a tale of race, radicalism, and betrayal that will reshape our understanding of why America developed so differently from other advanced industrial nations over the course of the last century.

Michael Goldfield is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and currently Research Fellow at the Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University. A former labor union and civil rights activist, Goldfield's work focuses on the study of labor, class, race, and American politics

Introduction
Chapter 1: Rigor in Historical Analysis
Chapter 2: The Vanguard: Coal Miners and Structural Power
Chapter 3: Social Movement Upsurge: Associative Power
Chapter 4: Class Struggle in Steel
Chapter 5: Paul Bunyan and the Frozen Logger: The Mystery of Woodworker Unionism in the South
Chapter 6: Textile - Where the Fabric Meets the Road: The Perils of Cultural Analysis
Chapter 7: The Failure of Operation Dixie: The Poverty of Liberalism
Chapter 8: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Pluses and Minuses of the Communist Party
Notes
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	17.03.2020
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	239 x 163 mm
Gewicht	748 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Vergleichende Politikwissenschaften
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-19-007932-0 / 0190079320
ISBN-13	978-0-19-007932-1 / 9780190079321
Zustand	Neuware