Your search

The article briefly reviews "Working People and Hard Times: Canadian Perspectives," edited by Robert Argue, Charlene Gannage, and D.W. Livingstone, "Social Movements/Social Change: The Politics and Practice of Organizing," edited by Frank Cunningham, Sue Findlay, Mar-lene Kadar, Alan Lennon, and Ed Silva, "Life Spaces: Gender, Household, Employment," edited by Caroline Andrew and Beth Moore Milroy, "Changing Patterns: Women in Canada," edited by Sandra Burt, Lorraine Code, and Lindsay Dorney, "Cape Breton Lives: A Book from Cape Breton's Magazine," edited by Ronald Caplan, "Feudal Society and Colonization: The Historiography of New France," by Roberta Hamilton, "Conspicuous Production: Automobiles and Elites in Detroit, 1899-1933," by Donald Finlay Davis, "In the Shadow of the Statue of Liberty: Immigrants, Workers, and Citizens in the American Republic, 1880-1920," edited by Marianne Debouzy, "The Jungle," by Upton Sinclair, introduction by James R. Barrett, "Sealskin and Shoddy: Working Women in American Labor Press Fiction, 1870-1920," edited by Ann Schofield, "Union Maids Not Wanted: Organizing Domestic Workers, 1870-1940," by Donna L. Van Raaphorst, "Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry: Interim Report" by the New York State Organized Crime Task Force, "A Revolutionary of the Heart: Essays on the Catholic Worker," edited by Patrick G. Coy, "Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars," edited by Margaret Randolph Higonnet, Jane Jensen, Sonya Michel, and Margaret Collins Weitz, "Women in the First Capitalist Society: Experiences in Seventeenth-Century England," by Margaret George, "Sectarian Violence: The Liverpool Experience, 1819-1914," by Frank Neal, "Childhood in Nineteenth-Century France: Work, Health and Education Among the Classes Populaires," by Colin Heywood, "Stalin's Industrial Revolution: Politics and Workers, 1928-1932," by Hiroaki Kuromiya, and "House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro," by Sandra Lauderdale Graham.

The article reviews the book "Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America," by Michael Denning.

The article briefly reviews "Canadian Papers in Business History," edited by Peter Baskerville, "Challenging the Regional Stereotype: Essays on the 20th Century," by E.R. Forbes, "The Development of the Pacific Salmon-Canning Industry: A Grown Man's Game," edited by Dianne Newell, " Arrangiarsi: The Italian Immigration Experience in Canada," edited by Roberto Perin and Franc Sturino, "One Man's War: Reflections of a Rough Diamond," by Milan (Mike) Bosnien, "Dissent and the State," edited by C.E.S. Franks, "Family Life Impacts of Offshore OU and Gas Employment," by Keith Storey, Mark Shrimpton, Jane Lewis and David Clark, "Jacobins and Jeffersonians: Anglo-American Radicalism in the United States, 1790-1820," by Richard J. Twomey, "The Samuel Gompers Papers: v. 3 — Unrest and Depression. 1891-94," edited by Stuart J. Kaufman and Peter J. Albert, "Came a Stranger: The Story of a Hull-House Girl," by Hilda Scott Polacheck, "The Butte Irish: Class and Ethnicity in an American Mining Town, 1875-1925," by David M. Emmons, "Homework: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Paid Labor at Home," edited by Eileen Boris and Cynthia R. Daniels, "Women, Class and the Feminist Imagination," edited by Karevn V. Hansen and Dene J. Philipson, "The Roots of Community Organizing, 1917-1939," edited by Neil Betten and Michael J. Austin, "Communities in Economic Crisis: Appalachia and the South," edited by John Oaventa, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Alex Willingham, "On the Line," by Harvey Swados, "Poletown: Community Betrayed," by Jeanie Wylie, "Occupation and Class Consciousness in America," by Douglas M. Eichar, "Planned to Death: The annihilation of a place called Howdendyke," by J. Douglas Porteous, "John Strachey," by Michael Newman, "A Secretary and a Cook: Challenging Women's Wages in the Courts of the United States and Great Britain," by Steven L. Willborn, "Visible Histories: Women and Environments in a Post-War British City," by Suzanne Mackenzie, "Strikes, Wars, and Revolutions in International Perspective: Strike Waves in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries," edited by Leopold Haimson and Charles Tilly, "The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848," by Robin Blackburn, "Labor and Industrial Relations Journals and Serials: An Analytical Guide," by Michael C. Vocino, Jr., and Lucille W. Cameron, "Labor Markets in Action: Essays in Empirical Economics," by Richard B. Freeman, and "For Freedom and Dignity: Historical Agency and Class Structures in the Coalfields of NSW," by Andrew Metcalfe.

"Critical theory is no substitute for historical materialism; language is not life." With this statement, Bryan Palmer enters the debate that is now transforming and disrupting a number of academic disciplines, including political science, women’s studies, and history. Focusing on the ways in which literary or critical theory is being promoted within the field of social history, he argues forcefully that the current reliance on poststructuralism—with its reification of discourse and avoidance of the structures of oppression and struggles of resistance—obscures the origins, meanings, and consequences of historical events and processes. Palmer is concerned with the emergence of "language" as a central focus of intellectual work in the twentieth century. He locates the implosion of theory that moved structuralism in the direction of poststructuralism and deconstruction in what he calls the descent into discourse. Few historians who champion poststructuralist thought, according to Palmer, appreciate historical materialism’s capacity to address discourse meaningfully. Nor do many of the advocates of language within the field of social history have an adequate grounding in the theoretical making of the project they champion so ardently. Palmer roots his polemical challenge in an effort to "introduce historians more fully to the theoretical writing that many are alluding to and drawing from rather cavalierly." Acknowledging that critical theory can contribute to an understanding of some aspects of the past, Palmer nevertheless argues for the centrality of materialism to the project of history. In specific discussions of how critical theory is constructing histories of politics, class, and gender, he traces the development of the descent into discourse within social history, mapping the limitations of recent revisionist texts. Much of this writing, he contends, is undertheorized and represents a problematic retreat from prior histories that attempted to address such material forces as economic structures, political power, and class struggle. Descent into Discourse counters current intellectual fashion with an eloquent argument for the necessity to analyze and appreciate lived experience and the structures of subordination and power in any quest for historical meaning.--Publisher's description

For the purposes of this review, labour studies is defined to encompass various disciplinary approaches, but, in general, this essay focuses on studies of the working class, not just of the labour movement, and material which places the working class in historical perspective. --From authors' introduction