Economic-union Books

Working-Class Americanism, written by Gary Gerstle, is a truly fascinating and inspiring book. He focuses on the early-twentieth-century Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a city of textile industry and habitated mainly by French-Canadian immigrants from Quebec, Canada. Most of residents in the city were French Canadian, but there were other residents, especially Franco-Belgians. The culture of French Canadian workers was community-centered, devoted to Catholicism, and French language. On the other hands, workers from France or Belgium were radical, or socialistic, social democrats. Gerstle analyzes the process hoe these two working-class groups of diffenent culture and ideology made (and broke later) tenuous alliance under the Independent Textile Union (ITU), an CIO-affiliated labor union.
The author's innovative approach to the labor history of Woonsocket is his usage of the concept of Americanism. He treats Americanism as not as a consistent and monolithic ideology but as a fluid language which is open to appropriation by various social groups and individuals. In his view the language of Americanism consists of several dimensions---nationalistic, democratic, progressive, and traditional. He argues that in the severe economic condition of the Great Depression two different working-class groups succeeded in establishing the strong labor movement of the ITU by using the nationalistic, democratic, and progressive dimensions of Americanism in order to articulate their rights as workers.
Gerstle's treatment of the labor Americanism is very subtle and sensitive. He does not insist that the discourse of Americanism could have assimilated French Canadians and Franco-Belgians into one monolithic Americanized group of citizen-workers. He points out that whereas Franco-Belgian radical labor leaders embraced a dream of remolding America thoroughly in terms of social democracy, French Canadian workers accepted Franco-Belgian leadership in the ITU as an instrument to reinvigorate their ethnic community and family (Gerstle points out the patriarchal nature of French Canadian working-class culture). French Canadians and Franco-Belgians allied without a common vision of American society. As a result, he suggests, they abandoned the alliance based on the ITU when local Republicans, after defeated by Democrats in the late 1930s, solicited French Canadian workers by giving favor to their ethnic culture. The author's unique approach to Americanism makes Working-Class Americanism interesting both as social history of labor and political history at the same time.
Gerstle has succeeded in discovering multi-faceted and complicated experiences of Woonsocket textile workers and their politics of language by wide and intensive research including interviews. The interviews make his book highly vivid. For example, he proves the ITU's commitment to democratic delibaration by description of an interview with a old-aged ex-labor activist, who showed the author his "highly polished gavel" and "dog-eared paperback copy of Robert's Rules of Order" which had been used for debates among union members. The reviewer felt spellbound to an imagination inspired by this episode.
I should remark, in the recent advance of studies on ethnicity and race, especially so-called "whiteness studies," that Woonsocket was the city of white people, native or immigrants, therefore the author makes almost no mention to problems of race or color-line (relations of French Canadian or Franco-Belgian workers with non-white people). It mean that his analysis might not be applicable to other regions where we could find deep-rooted racial confrontations. It, however, does not undermine the value of Gerstle's excellent analysis made in this book.

"The Years of Hunger" by Stephen Wheatcroft and R.W. Davies, two of the top historians of the USSR, is far and away the best book on the famine of 1931-33. Simply put, no one has done the archival research these two have, no one has put the pieces in place like these two have. The book is a gripping account, almost like a narrative, of the famine and the Soviet political culture, as well as the mentality of the populace. The early chapters describe the major state programs of collectivisation, dekulakisation, and crop collection. The later chapters examine the nature of the Sovkhozy and Kolkhozy the death of livestock, as well as a concluding chapter rebutting various arguments made by political ideologues about the famine and putting it in historical perspective.

The many and varied factors causing the famine are dmonstrated to a high degree. Overall, and quite generally, the famine resulted from bad policy rushed into quickly. However, this isn't the whole story. The famine was as bad as it was because of a whole slew of phenomena that corresponded with the bad policy. Policy limiting the extent of fallow land and mandated overcultivation, for example, severely reduced flexibility of planting times which became disastrous when combined with odd weather conditions. The bungling of grain collections by the state is explored in excruciating, but gripping, detal. Wheatcroft and Davies frequently recount series of communication between officials, or proposed policy documents as they circulate through the heirarchy, describing the conditions and proposing oslutions, and the response of the higher ups. The top leadership comes off looking somewhat bad on net, altohugh there are a number of examples of people like Stalin making the right decision in the face of incompetent subordinates. The caricature of Stalin as tyrant who would allow no criticism is thoroughly demolished. From what I gathered from the book, the authoritarian nature of the political system and restrictions on/intimidation of people who would potentially speak up did not seem to be as big of a problem as it was in some other authoritarian nations with major famines.

One problem is their criticism of Mark Tauger's arguments about the role of plant disease that was spreading throughout the area (somewhat independent of state policy). Tauger (correctly) presents this as a small but significant cause, whereas Wheatcroft and Davies would have it be insignificant. However, their argument agianst Tauger is completely incoherent. This should be obvious when one reads it, but you can also find Tauger's review of this book on the Economic History website.

Although there are only a few pages dedicated to refuting alternative explanations of the famine, this book serves to utterly destroy right wing (the famine was deliberate) and left wing (it was caused by reactionary saboteurs) myths about the famine. There is no evidence of an intentional famine at all, and the book recounts the serious attempts of the state to help mitigate and eliminate the famine. The authors even quote a personal correspondence with Robert Conquest in which he concedes (contrary to what he got famous for saying for decades) that the famine wasn't intentional. While only a few Ukrainian nationalist cranks hold this view, the book clearly destroys the idea of a famine concentrated only or overwhelmingly in the Ukraine. They show that 5.5-6.5M died in the famine, rather than some higher estimates.

While they don't explicitly mention them, this book refutes the favorite claims of certain Stalinists about the famine. To give one example, Douglas Tottle has tried to show the extent of sabotage by giving a few examples of saboteurs killing livestock and attributing the entire decline to sabotage. The chapter in this book on livestock, however, shows that the livestock starved in the famine itself! They also show how the condition they were kept in in state and collective farms contributed to the deaths of livestock.

I decided to spend last winter in Siberia (Kemerovo), and before I left I read this book and found a LOT of useful cultural cues and insights. Sure, many things have changed quite a bit in Russia generally since this book was written, but not the people and their cultural ethos.

The story the author tells of his time in Siberia is very interesting, and a once in a lifetime experience that I envy the author for having had the chance to enjoy. I often wonder if he has been back since, and what his thoughts are about Siberia now compared to then...

For me, one great thing about Siberia is that it has preserved the Soviet-era look much more than other parts of Russia (which I really love - it is like stepping into a different time). My adventure in Siberia was nowhere near as interesting as the described in this great book, but I can say sincerely that I loved spending the winter in Siberia - the place is an absolute dreamland or white icy splendor - a great change from the Detroit snow, melt, rain cycle that makes winter here so depressing and gloomy. I even have my very own Mink fur hat, which is a REALLY great thing to wear when the temp gets below -30, as it usually does in Siberia. I plan to return again to Siberia this fall before the snow comes this time.

Whether you plan to visit Siberia yourself, or are just looking for a great "real life" travel adventure book I would highly recommend reading Siberia Bound.

This book is amazing. The author's writing style is really unique and the way he describes the details and emotions of his time in Russia will not be forgotten by any reader. It captures a time and place in a way few writers can match. Anyone who is young at heart with an adventurous spirit will enjoy this book. Anyone interested in Russia will enjoy this book. There is not much else to say without spoiling the fun. I wish the author would have some more adventures and write a few more books. He has a serious talent for this type of writing and needs to keep it up.

I suppose you could call this a business book, and I did find it in the business section of the bookstore. But it is really a memoir, a travel narrative of sorts, and a love story.

Blakely goes to Siberia with a brand new university degree in economics. He became interested in the economics, especially capitalism, as the Soviet Union was collapsing. But it might have been just a passing interest if he had not fallen in love with a Russian woman on a university-sponsored trip. So when capitalism came to Siberia, he was ready. He had learned Russian and he wanted to be a pioneer of the New Russian Capitalism.

Blakely comes across as an optimistic and friendly Minnesotan who is game for anything. He loves the extremes of Siberia: the weather, the hard-drinking, the physical challenges. He and his Russian business partner, Sasha, don't really care what business they get into, as long as they make money. Capitalism for capitalism's sake. Blakely feels like a trail-blazer, bringing nourishing capitalism to the hungry socialists.

Blakely's writing style is easy and light, with lots of conversations and no flowery descriptions. He tells us about the food, the social life, the crime, the beauty of Siberia. It's fascinating.

Particularly revealing is the description of western missionaries in Siberia, who flood the country along with the capitalists. They impose, cajole, pressure, and trick their way into the Siberians' homes and their souls. Blakely has no patience for them at first, then finds that they are so pervasive that he has to deal with them on occasion. They are as zealous in bringing Christ to the Russians as the capitalists are in bringing free enterprise.

Blakely has mixed feelings about the changes capitalism brought to Siberia. He says he knows how Dr. Frankenstein must have felt, as he sees Siberia becoming more like America, with traffic jams and billboards. I think he gives himself a bit too much credit though. Capitalism would have come to Siberia and changed it, with or without Blakely.

Siberia Bound is a readable, enjoyable memoir that, along with The Other Side of Russia by Sharon Hudgins, about pre-capitalist Siberia, and So Many Enemies, So Little Time by Elinor Burkett, about post-9/11 Central Asia and beyond, will begin to give you a real picture of how Americans affect and are affected by people on the opposite side of the planet.

I stumbled across this book while looking for books on the Aral Sea and thought it sounded interesting. I found the writing, descriptions of life, and the adventures very interesting. I would be very interested in a follow-up book since at the end of the book we learn he is living in San Francisco. I can envision a Siberia - San Francisco comparison and perhaps his wife's thoughts on life in San Francisco area. Thanks and it was well worth my time to read.

If you haven't read Siberia Bound - you should. This book restored my faith that America can produce authors on a level with Scott Guggenheim and Arash Padahn. This book exudes a heightened sense of awareness of what it means to be American in a foreign land - a concept oft forgotten in today's gingoistic USA - and above all, what it means to be part of the larger community. Humanity.

Kudos to Blakely. This work is epic.

I purchased this book months ago, and kept putting off reading it. The reason for this is that the early pages are very poorly written. I was reminded of John Gray's silly "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" by Slezkine's absurd and, sadly oft-repeated, assessment of Jews as "Mercurians", and Gentiles as "Appolonians". But, well fortified by several more Hilaire Belloc books, I finally completed Slezkine's book. And I am glad that I did.

Basically, Slezkine's thesis is that the 21st century was the Jewish century, in the sense that its major events were determined by three great Jewish movements of migration from the original Eastern European "Pale of Settlement". The first of these, which Americans are most familiar with, is the migration of Eastern European Jews to the United States. And certainly, this migration did take place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, with a profound impact on American culture and politics. The second migration, known to much of the world as well, was the movement of Jews from the Talmudic areas of Eastern Europe to Palestine, as part of the Zionist experiment. And this movement also certainly took place in the same basic time period. But the third migration of Jews from the Pale of Settlement East into the great cities of Soviet Russia, following the Bolshevik Revolution is not well known by Westerners. And the reality of this migration and its impact on the Soviet state, its foreign policy, and subsequent history is the most valuable contribution of Slezkine's book.

Author Slezkine employs many unfortunate devices in his work. An example of this was earlier cited: Slezkine employs ancient mythology to explain the behavior of modern men. And he does so throughout the book. But worse than this misuse of mythology is his constant usage of fictional characters within his work of history. In fact, he describes the three migrations alluded to above in terms of the stories of the three daughters of Tevye, the Milkman, who theatre and film buffs will recall as the main character from "Fiddler on the Roof". Throughout the narrative, the names and stories of fictional and historical characters are interspersed. It is really terribly distracting, and has no place in a work of history. But what is truly most bothersome about the entire book is Slezkine's very evident racism. It is clear that he sees Jews and others as being inherently different creatures. And this overt racism is also an underlying theme of "The Jewish Century".

There are some startling revelations within the corpus of the book. On page 327, Slezkine avers that Israel today represents the last vestige of 1930's European fascism. Such words written by an author other than Slezkine, a Russian Jew, would have called down upon the author shouts of "anti-Semitism". But this book was given the National Jewish Book Award by the Jewish Book Council, or so it claims on the cover. Even more startling is Slezkine's admission on page 361 of the text, where he admits that former Soviet spy, "Hope" Ulanovakaia, was his grandmother. Esther Ulanovakaia, later named Nadya, or "Hope", was part of the Soviet spy ring that controlled the work of traitors Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. The last we hear of Ms. Ulanovakaia is that she had retired to Israel. And this, in a way, brings the story of the three migrations full circle. Jews from the Pale of Settlement played a huge role in the Soviet government. Many came to America as spies, there co-opting their previously landed extended family members. And, with the demise of their Soviet state, they finally settled in Israel.

Though difficult to read, due to the aforementioned unfortunate practices, Slezkine's book is nevertheless very important. Those who would truly understand Soviet, American, and Israeli politics in the 20th century would be well advised to read this book. Was the 20th century the "Jewish Century", as Slezkine avers? It witnessed two world wars, the creation of the Jewish states of the Soviet Union and Israel, murder on a scale previously unimagined, abortion in the United States on a vast scale, genocide, and much else. The question is: Is this a record of which Juri Slezkine really ought to be boasting?

This is a provocative, infuriating, fact-filled book. Although Slezkine provides a fascinating global analysis of the role of the Jews as "Mercurians" who are of service to "Apollonians," his real interest, and the book's lasting value, is in the analysis of the complex history of the author's native land, Russia.

This book more than adequately explains (at least to me, an interested non-specialist) what seems like a paradox of history: that Jews played a very prominent role in all aspects of the Bolshevik Revolution, yet soon suffered under the Stalinist purges and were the out-and-out targets of anti-Semitism and murder after World War II. Slezkine, relying on a plethora of little-known Russian-language sources, sorts these facts out in a memorable way. The author also does a remarkable job of connecting the lives and beliefs of Jewish Communists in America in the 1920s and 1930s with the lives of Jewish Communists in Russia at the same time.

Slezkine emphasizes the three great migrations of Russian Jews in the early 20th century: to America to gain economic freedom and prosperity, to Israel to live out the dream of Jewish nationalism, and to the large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg to become cosmopolitans and ultimately to participate in the Bolshevik Revolution. This third migration, he says, was less noticed than the other two but was equally important.

Possibly for reasons of intellectual neatness, Slezkine tries to argue that Freud exerted vast influence in the 20th-century United States. I believe that is misplaced as an explanation of the American character and explains only the behavior of the elites.

Still, this book is highly recommended to all readers. It will definitely induce you to think about some of the crucial issues of Western civilization.

Russian author Yuri Slezkine - a Berkeley professor who is half Jewish - has written a superb book about the life of the Jews during the 20th century. He calls the 20th century a Jewish century, since many of the needed attributes to triumph in contemporary society - brains more than brawn, to put it succinctly - have for centuries been the province of the Jews. He calls the Jews Mercurians - people dealing in urban professions, like commerce, medicine, teaching, later science - who live along side the Apollonians, who mostly live off the land. In many parts of the world Mercurians have lived with Apollonians, who usually viewed them suspiciously, says Slezkine, but in Europe, the only Mercurians were the Jews, and therefore they soon become the Other (add to that that in the Apollonian's sacred book Jews are considered to be the murderers of their God, and the issue of anti-Semitism can be understood better). By the 19th century, after Jews became emancipated, it was clear that Jews have few choices: assimilation to Christian society (many did that, even converting to Christianity), fight for the establishment of a revolutionary government that would make religion obsolete (also the choice of many Jews, especially in the first half of the 20th century), or seek a national homeland for the Jews, preferably in their ancestral territory, where they would became Apollonians. The later choice was Zionism, which originally seem the most eccentric of choices, the least likely to succeed, but which after the Holocaust became the triumphant one. A very fine book that does not shy away from some very controversial topics (like the role of Jews in the Russian Revolution and their prominent presence in the early Soviet government, until Stalin became mistrustful of them, once the State of Israel was founded, and their loyalty to the Soviet Union became doubtful to the dictator).

This is a book for Jews and Gentiles alike. Most of us non-jews have probably thought we had heard everything there is to know about Jewry in the 20th century from the numerous accounts of the Holocaust, the founding of Israel etc.

Not so!

This book looks at how East European jewry in the post-Czarist period found itself drawn to three rival and sometimes contending spiritual homelands. In short Revolutionary Russia, Zionism and Israel and immigrant America. Slezkine illustrates the tensions and interactions between the "three homelands".

Slezkine reminds us that there is a lot more to the Jewish story than the most well known themes. A fascinating read that helps the reader better understand how the 20th century unfolded.

I wonder whether it occurred to Dr. Slezkine that the Jewish-supported overthrow of the czars and establishment of the Communist regime in Russia led not only to the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939 and hence to World War II and the Holocaust, but also to the founding of the modern state of Israel.

If one wants to understand contemporary world politics then one ought to read this book.The Russian Revolution WAS and IS the most important event of the 20th century. Trotsky, the consumate Marxist, explains to us the whole story from the inside ---looking out. I might add that as a companion to Trotsky's works one should read the British historian E.H. Carr's History of the Russian Revolution. Carr was no Marxist but gives us as a view of the revolution from the outside--- looking in.
ET Seattle

The great Russian Bolshevik Leon Trotsky wore many hats in his revolutionary career. Organizer of revolutionary upheavals in 1905 and 1917 and military defender of the Soviet state in the early days. Withering political journalist and literary critic from the beginning of his career as a professional revolutionary. Soviet official in various capacities, depending on which way the political winds were blowing. Polemicist against Social Democratic revisionism and later the Stalinist degeneration of Leninism, the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state. Still later, in exile, he was the seemingly last independent defender of that Soviet state and the traditions of the Bolshevik party as Stalin turned the political landscape into a bloody battlefield in the late 1930's. Of all of these hats probably Trotsky's last struggles; to create a new international revolutionary party (the Fourth International)and trying to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia while at the same time defending the Soviet state, were the most important political battles of his life. That, in essence, is the purpose of his book the Revolution Betrayed under review here.

The question of the fate of the Soviet state at various points in the 20th century may seem a rather academic question at this time, especially since the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's. At a practical level it is hard to fault that argument. But let me make a little point here. Until the Gorbachev-directed political thaw in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980's the possibilities of discussing Trotsky's book about what when wrong "back in the days" was either done clandestinely or not at all. I, however, remember being at a meeting during that period where a Russian émigré spoke about the then current situation in Russia. He mentioned, in passing, that he had recently read Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed and found that the arguments made by him in the mid-1930's about the nature of Soviet society, the state governmental apparatus and the Communist Party sounded like they could have been made in the mid-1980's. This, my friends, is why we still read this little work.

Obviously some of Trotsky's argument is historically obsolete, even assuming conditions of a future socialist revival. The specific problem of Russia as the first workers state having been created in a predominantly agrarian society, then isolated by world imperialism and not augmented by revolutions in the capitalist West that would have given Soviet officials the life line they needed to turn that society around will not be replicated in the 21st century. What is not obsolete in Trotsky's argument, and is germane today in the struggle to turn China around, are the questions of the purposes that a workers state are created for, the nature of economic policy and who will guide it, the role of pro-socialist political parties and how to allocate cultural resources so that the goal- and this is important- of a stateless society gets a fair chance at implementation. Thus Trotsky here, donning the enlightened Soviet official hat that he never really took off even in exile, provides textbook examples of what to do and not to do to push socialism forward even under conditions of isolation.

If I was asked today what part of this document still has relevance I would pick out that chapter that deals with the question of Soviet Thermidor. All great revolutions, and the Russian Revolution was a great revolution, have contained ebbs and flows during the revolutionary period and then after the consolidation of power by the new regime have fallen back, not to the ways of the old regime but back nevertheless. One would have thought in 1921, let's say, that once the question of the existence of the Soviet state was essentially settled then the push toward socialism, even in isolation and given the vast economic dislocations of World War I and the Civil War, would be headed forward. That was not the case and Trotsky does a great service by putting the reasons for that, political as well as personal in perspective, particularly the responses of the Soviet working class to the revolutionary defeats in Europe and Asia in the 1920's. That said, where does this book fit into your list of Trotsky readings. Not first, that place is taken by his three-volume History of the Russian Revolution- the high point. But sometime shortly after that you need to address the issues presented in this book to see what went wrong and why.

I decided I wanted to explore Trotsky. I began by reading Isaac Duetscher's Prophet Armed, and then this book. In my distant past I read about the Revolution mainly through the eyes Anarchists (Emma Goldman among them), Rosa Luxembourg, and at Maknho (spelling?), and have also read a little Lenin (such as State and Revolution) for a political science college course, a long time ago. My guess and my rough experience is disciplined revolutionary elites must be filled with cadres who are focused and narrow and can bring great danger because they are eager to follow and very often do not reflect. A great movement is apt to commit acts as bad as many of the ones they fight. Revolutions and wars more often than not bring terrible things to and from all sides.

I sympathize with the 1917 Russian Revolution. The orders of the day, from the Czars to the Robber Barons were unjust, not free, not equal. For the majority of people, ordidnary people who worked for a living, racial and ethnic minorities (in particular ways) throughout the world, and women have not enjoyed freedom and democracy. This is more sharpley true if we go back to 1917, and examine the world as it was then. To be sure, freedom and democracy, declared as the foundations of many countries, were never more than formal or were facades, more a decoration than a reality anywhere. So imagine having a revolution for the lower class, the proletariat, and having it be Interantionalist and universal.

That is what happened in Russia, it was the first workers republic that existed for any longer than a few weeks or months. From this book and the earlier book, things did not happen well at all. These Revolutionaries had an opportunity and they took it, and this book tells the story very well of what then happened. I can gather from the whole of it that it was not quite the right place or time for it to be a good revolution. Trotsky's belief is that Socialism requires the abundance of production of the most productive Capitalist country's, so there is enough for the abundance to go around for everyone. It was also true that ounce this abundance and socialism was achieved, 'the State would begin to wilt away'. Classes are empowered by limited resources. People want to be on top where there is great need. When Socialism is achieved, authority, the police and strong armed methods of running things would not be needed because there was no one on top who had to be protected from the people below who had much less than they needed. (Just as Trotksy was proclaiming this wonderful world of human production and abundance, I immediately reflected about the limitations nature puts on us if we are not to destroy our world, but that is not a subject very many were thinking about in 1936. Back to the book Russia was not close in anyway to where such Socialism or the Revolution could succeed, and never by itself. However, it was the right place to have something different that can survive, being so huge and having the physcical attributes that buried Napoleon's army and would bury Hitler's as well. This gets to the core of Trotsky's theory of the Permanent Revolution. If the Revolution to succeed, or one that is worthy, It requires revolutions in at least some of the highest developed abundant Capitalist countries by the working class to achieve socialism, and aid poor Russia in it's development out of the pit and toward socialism.

Getting back to the beginning of the Revolution. Trotsky, the devoted Revolutionary, at this point was willing to commit some brutal acts, but not more brutal than most other welders of power under similar circmstances all over the world. It appears later, still as one of the major leaders, he fought hard and vocally for better things until he was driven out of power and into exile, and continued until he was assasinated 11 years later. I think this was in keeping with whom Trotsky the man was. He was reflective and critical, and he was for a revolution for the sake of all humanity. He was against Totalitarianism and reducing art and literature to be an instrument of Regime. he was insightful enough to recognize how a priveleged bureaucracy where industry was state owned,(but where there was a great lack of abundanceand a great amount for the priveleged to have to protect) became a ruthless ruling class.

One thing I recognized about the Revolution Betrayed is how it can in fact be taken more than one way. I can read between the lines how conservative supporters of the Capitalist ruling class could and did use Trotksy's very perceptive ideas for their own purposes. However Trotsky was a revolutionary Communist and he wrote in defense of Communists and the Communist revolution, and he was writing in favor of Communists such as his friend Lenin. Lenin was a very interesting man, whom I cannot judge because have not read enough of or about him. I do understand, to use an metaphor of this book, that Lenin was not like Stalin, he was not the Bonapartist face of a bureaucratic class sponsored totalitarian dictactorship. Whatever hope there is the honor and future of Communism, maybe springs from this book, which is a defense of the Communist Revolution and a comdemnation of Stalinism Totalitarianism by one of the great Communists. Maybe it stands like Atlas in keeping it from being obliterated.

In closing, I cannot descibe myself as a Trotskist or any other kind of
-IST, I do appreciate the man, but I am not going to make him into an idol to be worshipped. I also realize he was a man of war, he had a tough side. This is a very educating and worthwhile book, and I look forward to reading some more of his books. One negative, I don't know if the translator is to blame, but his style of writing is sometimes a little difficult, and I found myself having to read carefully, sometimes rereading a confusing expressed phrase to understand what he was writing.

In my humble opinion, Trotsky's "Revolution Betrayed" is the best analysis of not only the Russian revolution, but revolutions in general. I have studied revolutions in the modern world quite extensively, and re-reading this book at this particular time in history was a true eye-opener - again. To be simplistic, revolutions do not provide lasting success when nothing is to be gained. Those who rise against existing power expect to be rewarded, not with poverty, but with a certain degree of wealth and privilege. If there is nothing to be distributed, then what is the use in fighting? Stalin unfortunately stepped in at the right place, at the right time. Not good for the outcome of that revolution, not good for socialism, but good for Stalin's kind of power.

A few years ago I visited Komsomolsk, Stalin's "Youth" city. It was decaying, a pitiful sight to behold. Buildings on ultra-wide neglected avenues in need of repair, high weeds everywhere, crime uncontrolled. Power gone bad?

Stalin and his compulsive bureaucracy were feared all over Europe. Blessed with clear early childhood memories that include the conversation of adults, I vividly remember my grandmother's fear of Stalin discussed with friends and family members. They witnessed the rise of this awful bureaucracy next door, word of the killings and the horrible brutality didn't just dribble out, it flowed out. I want to say that the Stalinist bureaucracy is unique, but all bureaucracies are designed to increase continuously and feed of themselves, and exist everywhere in the world. And people flock to them for employment, protection, security, in great masses, because bureaucracies deliver security. And if people do not fly into bureaucratic arms directly, they deal with them on a daily basis. There is no getting away from that apparatus of suffocation, nowhere.

Bureaucracy does not have to be bad, and Trotsky dwells on the need for leadership from within the workers, the suppressed, creating a bureaucracy that is just and fair. Is that ever possible? I believe that capitalism and bureaucracy are a contradiction, and unless corruption reigns, they cannot coexist. What comes next?

Trotsky's book raises more questions than it answers, but I am sure it was written for that purpose as well as enlightening the scholar of his interpretation of a betrayed revolution. And where do we go from here?

A reader of 'The Revolution Betrayed' will find invaluable insight into the 'intellectual response' of a leading Soviet politician. Trotsky was a very important contributor to the theoretical idiom which frames the 'conceptual creation' of the USSR. He had a part to play in many critical phases of the October Revolution and Civil War, organizing and propagandizing, enforcing harsh discipline and imposing his theoretical brand of Marxism on the Soviet State. His distinguished position in Lenin's party is beyond debate. Reading this text gives the reader a deeper analytical impression into the changes and transformations that occurred in the highest echelons of the Soviet bureaucracy, as Stalin began to accrue power. Indispensable reading for anybody with an interest in Russia history.

Freeland's book concentrates on the specifics of economic and political upheaval during the 1990s. What is great is that it gets into the heads of the Russian natives, shows their motivations and how they achieved their goals. Much is discussed on the politically astute strategy and tactics. While some of the author's dialog reads like a Cold War spy thriller, as in Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October (1984)," this reviewer has read other books that cover similar ground and confirms that the scenarios are realistic and not just a fictionalized expose. In short, Freeland's book is a Soviet real-life Perestroika epic.

Ms Freeland is a young Harvard and Rhodes Scholar trained journalist, at 26 was assigned as Moscow bureau chief and reported for 9 years. She had a penchant in investigative journalism for UK's Financial Times, a well-respected business newspaper. Obviously from the intimate details, she had help from FT's native staff, an extended field of friends, research troopers and family, in order to turn a pile of newspaper articles and interviews into a coherent, cohesive book. Even so, it was still amazing that she was able to get so many detailed interviews from the characters in the book.

While the hc book has no pixs of the author, she must be a good looking, articulate in Russian, and perhaps a gutsy single at the time. In order to validate her credibility, this reviewer viewed a documentary film (Shelley Saywell, 94, Icarus) on women journalists on the Sarajevo and Afganistani War front. Psychologically women correspondents (esp Lyse Doucet, CBC, now BBC) have an unique edge to get truthful, detailed interviews, where their male counterparts fail; from starving street urchins to generals and guerrilla commanders.

Ms Freeland is a 3rd generation Slav from Ukraine, an immigrant farming family whose granddaughter grew up in Alberta province, Canada px,8. Freeland (b1968), now 40, is currently the US Managing Editor of FT.

There is much-italicized native "slang" sprinkled throughout the book, but no compendium or glossary list. In the front she has a cast of 44 characters and an event timeline to just before the election of Putin. The book covers Boris Yeltsin's and Bill Clinton's watch.

She doesn't cover anything during the Gorbachev era or have a preface on why the USSR agriculture and military-heavy industry complex was failing in the first place. This reviewer strongly recommends a broader book on modern RU history, such as Hosking, a Harvard historian. You need to understand Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev's economic policy, which prefaced the end of a strict centralized control from Moscow.

There are no further maps or pixs in the book; 7-pg footnotes mainly referencing hundreds of personal interviews (assumed tape recorded) and a 22-pg index. Most readers will need some geo-assistance, such as Google Maps, to keep your bearings in Moscow and country.

The stories concentrate on privatization of the state-owned monolithic companies, in banking, autos, oil, telecomm, chemicals, power, natural resources, strategic metals, defense, transportation, and cohorts in the media TV and newspapers. Each story includes the who and how men (first and last name) and RU invented unwritten rules, insider corruption, and the "Godfather" mafiya gun p106 to greedily collect all the spoils as fast as they could. With the "free" pricing system in chaos, they squirreled their monies into Swiss and off-shore banks p258.

Of the 13 chapters, Chap3 "The Iron General privatizes RU," Chap4 "Who gets the Loot?" Chap6 "The Oligarchs: the outsider, the apparatchik, and the blue blood," Chap11 "Champagne too Soon: stories from the new Russia," and Chap13 "Things Fall Apart, appears to be most important.

As Freeland sees it, the key people in the "Young Reformers" have 12 key players. Anatoly Chubais, with Yeltsin's blessing, orchestrated the new capitalism with Russian characteristics p52. Yegor Gaidar took care of politics [blue blood] Chap2 p24-49. Boris "Borya" Berezovsky cultivates Putin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko p140, 211 friendship gifts for favors and access to her cellphone number. So does Aleksandr Korzhakov, Putin's friend and bodyguard p157. This puts Tatyana in a bind. Read Chap10 Dividing the Spoils, when half a million in cash comes into jeopardy...the Russian mafiya at work p269.

In Chap6 of 22 pgs, outsider is Mikhail Friedman (Jew) p113 import technology; apparatchik is Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Jew) p120-7 investment banking; blue blood is Vladimir Potanin p128 mezzanine banking are discussed in detail. Khodorkovsky, low key approach to becoming a conglomerate with investment banking subsidiary, is a excellent tale in how one man overcame adversity and achieve much in spite. Freeland's Khodorkovsky article won the Biz J Year Awards 2004 ([...]).

Upon reading Khodorkovsky's Wiki, it shows that because he was publicized in the Western press as a billionaire and possibly forming a competing political party as well as getting really chummy with western oil companies. He was arrested in 2003, accused of fraud and tax evasion in his Yukos / Siberian oil holdings and sentenced to 9 yrs in a Siberian Gulag attached to a radioactive Uranium mine.

Interesting was the tale of using the New Media which became a mouthpiece and strategic tool to get the Young Reformers out of trouble and extending the will upon the common Russian on the street. Vladimir "Gus" Gusinsky's "Segodnya" newspaper p150 and NTV p153 was strategic in a media campaign to avoid being arrested p161-67.

Going to Perm to see new brewing enterprises was interesting p84 especially against the conflicts with the Mongols and Tatars since the Middle Ages, Yakaterinburg p203 and other Siberian cities Akademgorodok and Krasnoyarsk p221.

In short, Freeland's book makes it easier to understand the Perestroika collapse of the USSR and the devaluation of the ruble p306 with US Treasury blessing Chap13. Only Friedman and Gusinsky emerged unscathed p334. It has names and stories that make it much easier to see the forest from the trees and is specific and detailed enough to be a launching pad for further research.

This book was both easy to read and interesting. Freeland has a gift for writing in a way that both speaks to not only people with Finance backgrounds but laymen as well. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in expanding their horizons in a new and exciting direction while learning something at the same time.

The author clearly intends us to appreciate the characters she portrays as dynamic and progressive entrepreneurs. But she actually gives us a picture of a bunch of greedy criminals who have shamelessly looted and wrecked their country.

The government sold off several huge oil companies including LUKoil, Russia's largest company, Yukos, Russia's second biggest oil company, and Sidanco. Mikhail Khodorovsky loaned the government $159 million for a 45% stake in Yukos in 1995. He sold it to himself in 1996, using a shell company, for $160 million. The state got $1 million profit; Khodorovsky got the company, valued at $15 billion in 2002. He bought oil cheap from the extractor companies, and pledged it, at high export prices, to secure the loans. This transfer pricing stripped the assets and values from the producers, who got only the debts and expenses. Goldman Sachs profited from the looting: they underwrote Khodorovsky's $500 million loan against future oil sales.

In 2000, Sibneft bought 27% of its shares for $542 million from shareholders. Less than a year later it secretly sold those shares, for far less, back to the same shareholders. It then announced a $612 million dividend to the stockholders - one of whom, Roman Abramovich, now the owner of Chelsea Football Club, owned 87% of the stock. He had stripped Sibneft's cash to fund his repurchase.

The government sold off other national assets at knock-down prices, including tax concessions, TV channels, radio frequency licences, export licences and government bank accounts. Yeltsin privatised Channel 1, which reached 200 million Russians, without the legally required auction, selling it to his ally Berezovsky, whose capital was only $2.2 million. The government sold bonds to the capitalists' banks at a huge discount. The banks resold the bonds at market prices, raising cash supposedly for Yeltsin's re-election campaign, but the owners pocketed most of it.

The capitalists looted state funds and the Soviet Union's gold reserves. The new banks took billions of dollars of party, government and trade union funds, and transferred the money to foreign bank accounts. Russia's central bankers defrauded Russia by transferring profits to offshore tax havens, and used the profits to pay themselves bonuses.

Anatoly Chubais, head of the State Privatization Committee, said of Russia's capitalists, "They steal and steal and steal. They are stealing absolutely everything and it is impossible to stop them." By 1999, 38% of Russia's people existed below the poverty line. 90% of the people endured worsening conditions, while the handful of arrogant capitalists made colossal profits by theft and corruption. That's capitalism for you!

The book is somewhat entertaining, but its style is a bit too sardonic and her attitude vis-à-vis Russians is patronizing. Even Russians who, admittedly, are not my favorites characters, I feel like defending. She calls Alexander Korzhakov, an influential former head of Yeltsin's Security Service, a Russian illustration of the Peter Principal', because he `climbed to a position of power that far outstripped his intellectual resources'. Granted, Korzhakov is no Socrates, but his college degree in jurisprudence and current post of the deputy chairman of the Duma's (Russian Parliament) Defense Committee is a confirmation that perhaps behind a façade of a simpleton is hidden a smart individual. Even notorious (and wanted by the Russian government) Boris Berezovsky, whom the author calls `a jumped-up car salesman', is much more than that - a highbrow Russian `enfant terrible' with a Ph.D. in mathematics for starters.

However, the most important thing is that the book appears, as the French say, engagé. I believe this book's real purpose is to divert attention from the individuals and institutions, which are really responsible for the debacle of the Russian privatization. For one thing, she mentioned the name of Gregory Yavlinsky only once in her 360-page long book about Russian capitalist revolution and only at the end of the book. Yet, Yavlinsky, who is household name in Russia and twice-also-ran-presidential-candidate, was one of the midwives of Russian privatization. His `500 days' program was written in the late 1980s with Mikhail Gorbachev's blessing. It was supposed to transform Soviet centralized economy into a market economy by the end of 1993. Yavlinsky resigned form the government after Gorbachev rejected the program in 1990. Neither this is mentioned in the book, nor the fact the Harvard University fellows, like Graham Allison, were promoting ideas and giving intellectual impetus to Yavlinsky and Shatalin (another Russian co-author of the program).

In the late 80s and early 90s Boris Yeltsin was competing with Gorbachev for power. He decided that the road to power lies through economic radicalism. Yeltsin assembled a competing set of pet economic advisers - most famous among them were Gaidar and Chubais. These two well-educated English-speaking Russians had even more far-reaching ideas than Yavlinsky. Eventually Yeltsin prevailed over Communists, and Gaidar and Chubais moved into the government. They had their own set of Harvard intellectuals to assist and advise them, among them was the Harvard professor Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs is a very interesting figure, whose liberalism and market fundamentalism are fused into one. Freeland mentioned Sachs only once in passing (on page 75), but his personality and ideas were of paramount importance. He was the real intellectual father of Russian `shock therapy'. All in all, the Harvard advisors look to me like sort of collective `éminence grise' to the Russian privatizers of both camps (Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's). What interesting to me is the fact that the author doesn't mention Harvard in the book, except mentioning in `Acknowledgments' that the Harvard University provided her with nonresident fellowship and `stimulating environment to complete the book'.

As I see it, `shock therapy' came from the West, more precisely from the U.S., and specifically from the group of radical Harvard professors, most notably Andrei Shleifer and Jeffrey Sachs, who both were directly advising the Russian government in 1992-1993. These were the years Russia plunged into abyss. And yet, there is nothing of this in the book. There is also nothing to explain how Yegor Gaidar managed to stumble into `shock therapy' idea. He was, according to Freeland, a big fan of Samuelson's textbook `Economics', which `became his bible'. But there is nothing the textbook about `shock therapy'. Indeed I doubt that Samuelson would have approved such an outrageous idea.

Freeland's conclusion is a master stroke. She likes ideas of Richard Pipes, who was her professor at Harvard (déjà vu). These ideas in a nutshell - the tsarist, communist or re-born capitalist Russia represents hypostases of same imperialist, semi-barbaric, Asiatic despotism, which is driven by the eternal messianic zeal.
For Freeland, the free-market-through-minimum-government regime is the best economic system that Russia could have established, but the neo-Bolshevist zeal of `young reformers' spoiled the whole thing up.

With a straight face she is saying `The problem was not that the young reformers were too radical, but that they were too fanatical'. Or `I am convinced that the central failure of Russia's capitalist revolution was that it did not go far enough' (page 344). It is a folly. Shock tactics of Gaidar and his western advisers didn't work and couldn't have worked in Russia, regardless how far they would go. They caused nothing but pain and social strife. Withdrawing price control and unleashing unregulated free markets had caused a continuous 25% monthly inflation and falling industrial production of 25% per quarter (faster than during the Great Depression in America). The hyper-inflation wiped out most of people's life savings, which in combination with general decline of living standards and crumbling infrastructure, caused millions premature adult deaths in Russia through the 1990s. During this hurried transition to market democracy, Russia became a society with Third world mortality rates and First World birth rates. This should have been mentioned in the book as the real price of Russian privatization. All in all, the book feels to me like a Disney version of events, nothing more than an attempt to divert attention or may be even reassign the blame to vaguely defined by the author `Russian messianic tendencies'.

Chrystia Freeland, Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, chronicles Russia's roller-coaster ride from communism to crony capitalism. She writes poetically, with creative metaphors, colorful word pictures, and a keen insight into Russian history. The copious adverbs, adjectives, and details--sometimes superfluous-may, however, irritate those reading her book for the "bottom line." The book also omits analysis of organized crime in general. On the other hand, a key strength of Sale of the Century is Freeland's ability to bring to life the key players in Russian politics: Yeltsin, Gaidar, Chubais, and the handful of wealthy oligarchs. As a journalist, she was able to meet most of them often. The book enables the reader to develop a more refined and differentiated understanding of the oligarchs.
Among these are Mikhail Friedman ("the outsider") who heads the Alfa Group, an oil, industrial, trading, and financial conglomerate. As a Jewish Ukrainian barred from prestigious educational establishments, Friedman began his entrepreneurial ventures early, starting with illegal bartering of theater tickets and later obtaining Western consumer goods for top officials (p. 115).
Mikhail Khordokovsky ("the apparatchik") is also Jewish and leads Menatep, the bank and financial-industrial conglomerate. Outwardly docile with a soft voice and slight stutter, Khordokovsky is adept at winning the trust of the government officials, having pursued a parallel career in the Komsomol. Beneath the subordinate exterior, however, lies a ruthless person who installs hidden video cameras in his buildings and does not hesitate to fire slackers (p. 121).
Unlike Friedman and Khordokovsky, Vladimir Potanin ("the blueblood") was the son of a senior Soviet trade official and already had a promising Soviet career. He realized in the nick of time that, as the Soviet Union's collapse accelerated, "the advantages that had ensured Potanin's advancement suddenly threatened to become golden handcuffs" (p. 129). He started his own business, which eventually became Oneximbank, which now handles the "juiciest" government accounts, including the State Customs Agency .., and the state arms-trading company "Rosvooruzheniye," which keeps "a few tens of millions" on Potanin's books (p. 131).
Vladimir Gusinsky ("the impresario") dabbled in many entrepreneurial activities (driving a gypsy cab, peddling blue jeans, and "medicinal" copper bracelets) and also worked as a theater director before founding the consortium of banks (the Most group) and persuading his patron Yuri Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow, to transfer money to them from Soviet-era banks. He founded inter alia the newspaper Segodnya and the first independent television channel (NTV).
His main rival is Boris Berezovsky ("the nomad"), although the two oligarchs have functioned temporarily as allies. Perhaps the most unsavory of all the oligarchs, Berezovsky, also Jewish, has been particularly good at winning the favour of members of Yeltsin's entourage (especially the latter's youngest daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko) and directly influencing the presidential elections of 1996 and 2000.---Johanna Granville, Ph.D.

Good book, very well written. As the writer explains, he described this business like "it is". He did a great job at covering the ins and outs of the business in great detail. Excellent for someone new to this that is trying to find out whether this is a suitable business idea or not.

Excellent book. Well organized, and well written. Lots of pointers to other resources as well. Some web links are broken.

Found this one to be well done, but a little more technical than I prefer. This book does include just about every bit of info you will need, from forms to products to making the right overseas and domestic connections. Also look at Import/Export: How to Get Started in International Trade.

This book is fine for the very early entrepreneur. There is an entire chapter on choosing between forms of organization, buying office supplies and creating a logo. It's a good birds-eye-view of the import/export process, however, if you are a professional seeking insights and business solutions, you will not find many new ideas here.

Well, where do I start? This book is useful to understand what every small time operator is doing in this business. You don't want to follow the crowd so I suggest you purchase this book and John Weiley Spiers Book "How Small Business Trades Worldwide". If you follow the techniques outlined by Weiss you're wasting your time, taking on too much risk, and making very little profits. I'm not saying you can't do it, for example, using trade bulletins to find buyers but so is everybody else! This is not an easy business if you do it this way. No real mention of the internet is made to make it useful nor does he focus too much on the marketing aspects which is the most important. Again, there are ways, and very few of them, to make some big profits. In a strange way, I am recommending this book so you understand what everybody else is doing to get into this business, and hopefully you don't follow. If someone is starting off in their own business, I highly recommend you start out as a Manufacturers representative and branch out as an importer/exporter as part of the overall business. [...]

A well-written and comprehensive account of a labor relations consultant's misdeeds. Catalogues with many accute psychological observations the harm many managers and labor relations consultants cause workers through wrong actions--often, he confesses, willfully. Also, the personal experience of holding a destructive job and the accompanying mechanisms denial are important to understand, both in this book and in all our lives as workers, consultants, or managers. In his career, Levitt's cycle of destructive work was linked with alcoholism and compensatory over-spending, and the authors make it clear that the personal psychological knots of consultants and managers perpetuate their wrong actions and livelihoods. This narration is heartrending and sickening, but is a vital call to examination of the labor crimes in this country and of personal responsibility for suffering.

Marty is an extrordinary man who, not only through this book, is helping workers gain the right to better working conditions and benefits.

In Las Vegas we are organizing all the Wal-Mart's and Sam's Club's and recently my Sam's Club was the first one in quite some time to petition for an entire store election.

Marty volunteered his time to talk with us about what the company would do (which they did) and how to counter it.

His book is full of his exploits as a 'union buster' and the damage he created. For anyone who believes that their company is trying to 'educate' them about unions should first read this book.

Bottom line: If you want to know how far corporate America wants to restrict their employees rights under Federal law to have a Union, read this book.

This book is a fascinating account of not only union busting but a man's descent into greed. I couldn't put it down.

In retrospect, this author is able to see what choices and decisions he had to make in his working life made on others; not a usual occurrence in the real world.

What Marty Levitt passes on to his readers is that even though he didn't feel the brunt of his decisions at the time, he realized the difference that he made on their lives later, when he was able to review and reflect on his own choices.

The tale of alcoholism is sad, but admirable in that he acknowledged it and was seeking a better life for the future.

Marty's decision was a good one, to share this story with the world. It is well written and well presented; an enlightening way to share his knowledge and experience about unions and union busting, as well as own personal weaknesses with the world in order to move on. I even enjoyed re-reading it after over five years.

I read Mr. Levitt's book on the recommendation of a coworker. While I found it to be an informative and digusting peek into the sordid world of the professional union-buster, I was dismayed that Mr. Levitt was using his misery causing professional experience to make more money from the victims he is now trying to make ammends to after the crime.

The book is a must read for any American worker - particularly those who labor in a Right To Work state or under a Birmingham Plan minded management. I only wish that any profits from the book were going to fund union organizing drives in an effort to make some small reparation to those who were harmed by the odious and demeaning tactics Mr. Levitt wielded as his tools of trade in the employ of greedy, capricious managers.

Easy to read and a must have pilled with information. Don't take all of it litteraly because every union uses parts of this book in different ways.

A MUST for the new Stewart, and very helpful for the experienced Stewart, as a refresher.

This book is a good reference tool for the novice Union Steward, and I recommend it to anyone who is currently a Union Steward. Lots of insightful tips!

This is a great resource for old and new stewards alike. Everything is broken down into easy to look up categories that give information from health and safety to conducting a meeting. I highly recommend it.

A new, updated and expanded edition was published in 2006; the original was published in 1997. Be sure you're seeing the latest version.

I teach AP high school US History and I just got my masters degree in history, and this is a great source for both people who know a lot (a disappearing breed) and almost nothing about the Wobblies. It's appropriate that on the 100th anniversary of its founding, the Wobblies, an organization that used visual communication so brilliantly to recruit and communicate with its members (because so many of its membership did not speak English), would get a book like this published written both by leading labor historians and cartoonists in the relatively recent graphic novel movement. The history is solid, the drawings are great, and it successfully tells a compelling story to a broad audience. I wish I had written this book.

The history uses many cartoonists, many cartoon styles. Text outside the cartoons is minimized. Footnotes are light. But compelling reading as an introduction to the Wobblies, from their beginnings to this 2005 publication. A lot of information despite (or maybe because of) the cartoon format.

These are not neutral presentations. You may wonder whether our government and corporations really mistreated workers in this way. That many jailed, that many killed? This is within the past 100 years. If we're not careful, whatever progress workers have made since the Wobblies began may be lost.

Read this great intro and get charged up. Then, by all means, seek out other sources to check what you've been told here. Section six of this book, "IWW Lives", alerts us that, although smaller than in the past, the IWW is active. Seek them out on the Web: you too can be a wobbly.

This book has everything: words, pictures, history, exciting stories, and disaffected workers. There are almost as many different artists as stories, so it's easy to look at each episode with fresh eyes.

The IWW may have been small, but they were also hugely important, and there are more scholarly ways to learn about them, but there can't be any that are more fun than this.

This is one of the most enjoyable books on the hidden and suppressed labor history of American workers. Made all the more enjoyable by the variety of people's artists/cartoonists that have contributed to what is surely a labor of love. This is not what you're going to be taught in schools or colleges. This book portrays clearly that long memorable struggle for dignity among the working class that continues to the present day.
The Wobblies held to a grass roots approach of organizing workers, prefering "crude vigor to polished banality", a system of priorites too little seen in these waning days of capitalism. Each young person, parent and school should have this information available to them, for any soul not born with a silver spoon wedged in their mouth will come away from this history with a lump in your throat and a new spring in your step. In light of encroaching globalism (that is no friend to worker's anywhere) this is a handbook to inspire and encourage a new generation to take control of their own destiny.
Solidarity Forever!
P.S.- Check out the recordings of Utah Phillips, the modern troubadour/sage of the Wobblies.

As a historian of the IWW, I bought this title hoping for something new and insightful. While the presentation is new, it really suggests what Henry Adams referred to as the devolution of America. The real IWW did some interesting things with the graphic arts -- none of which are cited or displayed by the author. While portrayed as a serious history, this is truly a comic book posing as history. I would not buy it again/