From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend - by Priscilla Murolo & A B Chitty (Paperback)

About the Book

A comprehensive look at the history of the United States through the prism of working people. In this fully updated new edition, the authors have added a wealth of fresh analysis of labor's role in American life, and three entirely new chapters on global labor developments, worker activism in immigrant communities, and the 2016 election and unions' relationships to Trump. -- Adapted from back cover.

Book Synopsis

Newly updated: "An enjoyable introduction to American working-class history." -The American Prospect

Praised for its "impressive even-handedness", From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend has set the standard for viewing American history through the prism of working people (Publishers Weekly, starred review). From indentured servants and slaves in seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley, the book "[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor", enlivened by illustrations from the celebrated comics journalist Joe Sacco (Library Journal).

Now, the authors have added a wealth of fresh analysis of labor's role in American life, with new material on sex workers, disability issues, labor's relation to the global justice movement and the immigrants' rights movement, the 2005 split in the AFL-CIO and the movement civil wars that followed, and the crucial emergence of worker centers and their relationships to unions. With two entirely new chapters-one on global developments such as offshoring and a second on the 2016 election and unions' relationships to Trump-this is an "extraordinarily fine addition to U.S. history [that] could become an evergreen . . . comparable to Howard Zinn's award-winning A People's History of the United States" (Publishers Weekly).

"A marvelously informed, carefully crafted, far-ranging history of working people." -Noam Chomsky

Review Quotes

Praise for the first edition:
"A comprehensive history of American labor. . . . Enlivened and diverted by the humorous cartoon narratives of Joe Sacco."
--The Washington Post

"Thoroughly includes the contributions of women, Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, and minorities, and considers events often ignored in other histories."
--Booklist

"An evergreen ... comparable to Howard Zinn's award-winning A People's History of the United States."
--Publishers Weekly

"A marvelously informed, carefully crafted, far-ranging history of working people."
--Noam Chomsky

Praise for the first edition:
"A comprehensive history of American labor. . . . Enlivened and diverted by the humorous cartoon narratives of Joe Sacco."
-The Washington Post

"Thoroughly includes the contributions of women, Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, and minorities, and considers events often ignored in other histories."
-Booklist

"An evergreen ... comparable to Howard Zinn's award-winning A People's History of the United States."
-Publishers Weekly

"A marvelously informed, carefully crafted, far-ranging history of working people."
-Noam Chomsky

About the Author

Priscilla Murolo teaches American history at Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Yonkers, New York. Comics journalist Joe Sacco is the author of Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde, and The Great War. He lives in Portland, Oregon. A.B. Chitty works as a librarian systems officer at Queens College. He lives in Yonkers, New York.