Description
Book SynopsisFrom the Roaring Twenties through to the Great Depression, Irving Bernstein presents a comprehensive history of the American workforce. The Lean Years is the first instalment of Bernstein's critically acclaimed trilogy on the American labour movement which charts how the New Deal and labour unions preserved democracy and capitalism at a time when the survival of both was unclear. This classic text revolutionises social history, vividly narrating an era of wrenching hardships but also great victories in the workers' movement.
Trade Review"A lively, knowledgeable book about the state of labor in the years prior to the New Deal. The author has accomplished an expert blend of illustrative detail and meaningful summary reliable in scholarship and shorn of pedantry and pretense." --Industrial and Labor Relations Review "A skillful blending of economic activity, legislative inactivity, biographical sketches, and the increasing demoralization of the worker and labor organization." --The Journal of Economic History "An unusually perceptive dissection."
