The American hemisphere is now more tightly interconnected than ever before, with the trend toward greater economic, social and cultural integration apparently certain to continue. In this landmark text, Charles Bergquist offers a fresh interpretation of the historical background to this integration from the unusual perspective of labor. Focusing on slices of US history, and built around critiques of a handful of classic and influential texts, his five essays form not a conventional narrative history but rather a study in the construction of historical meaning, and an invitation to make use of history in the forging of a new, more democratic understanding of politics in the Americas. The book opens with an illustration of how the different labor systems of colonial America best explain the great disparity in development and power between the US and Latin America today. It goes on to link the origins of US imperialism to labor's democratic studies at home, and to explore labor's role in the Latin American social revolutions, before presenting an analysis of popular culture in the Americas in which Donald Duck is revealed as the representative of all workers. Will Donald rewrite the history books and, in our post-Cold War era, realize his democratic potential? Or will he bungle the job and succumb to the postmodern confusions of the capitalists' "New World Order?"

In Liberalism, Puritanism and the Colonial Mind, Parrington gives a brilliant account of the beginning and development in American letters, the early ideas that have come to be reckoned as traditionally American--how they came into being, how they were opposed, and what influence they have exerted in determining the form and scope of our ideals and institutions. In doing so, the author follows the path of political, economic, and social development. This first of a three-volume work carries the account from early beginnings in Puritan New England to the triumph of Jefferson and back-country agrarianism. This first part of Main Currents in American Thought deals with intellectual backgrounds, especially with those diverse systems of European thought that have domesticated themselves in America. Parrington examines the legacies of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe to the colonial settlements and, in particular, the transplanting to America of old-world liberalisms. The liberalisms discussed in this book derive from two primary sources, English Independency and French Romantic theory, supplemented by English Whiggery. From the first came the revolutionary doctrine of natural rights, clarified by thinkers ranging from Roger Williams to John Locke. A doctrine that destroyed the philosophical sanction of divine right and substituted it for the traditional absolutism was formed. This struggle largely determined the course of development in early New England. A new introduction by Bruce Brown highlights the life of Vernon Louis Parrington and explains the importance of this Pulitzer-Prize winning study.

In this new political history of the labor movement, Clayton Sinyai examines the relationship between labor activism and the American democratic tradition. Sinyai shows how America's working people and union leaders debated the first questions of democratic theory—and in the process educated themselves about the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship. In tracing the course of the American labor movement from the founding of the Knights of Labor in the 1870s to the 1968 presidential election and its aftermath, Sinyai explores the political dimensions of collective bargaining, the structures of unions and businesses, and labor's relationships with political parties and other social movements. Schools of Democracy analyzes how labor activists wrestled with fundamental aspects of political philosophy and the development of American democracy, including majority rule versus individual liberty, the rule of law, and the qualifications required of citizens of a democracy. Offering a balanced assessment of mainstream leaders of American labor, from Samuel Gompers to George Meany, and their radical critics, including the Socialists and the Industrial Workers of the World, Sinyai provides an unusual and refreshing perspective on American labor history.

Since World War I, says Joseph McCartin, the central problem of American labor relations has been the struggle among workers, managers, and state officials to reconcile democracy and authority in the workplace. In his comprehensive look at labor issues during the decade of the Great War, McCartin explores the political, economic, and social forces that gave rise to this conflict and shows how rising labor militancy and the sudden erosion of managerial control in wartime workplaces combined to create an industrial crisis. The search for a resolution to this crisis led to the formation of an influential coalition of labor Democrats, AFL unionists, and Progressive activists on the eve of U.S. entry into the war. Though the coalition's efforts in pursuit of industrial democracy were eventually frustrated by powerful forces in business and government and by internal rifts within the movement itself, McCartin shows how the shared quest helped cement the ties between unionists and the Democratic Party that would subsequently shape much New Deal legislation and would continue to influence the course of American political and labor history to the present day.

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