A Contest of Ideas

For more than thirty years the author of this book has deployed his scholarship—on labor, politics, and social thought—to chart the history and prospects of a progressive America. This book collects and updates many of the author's most provocative and controversial essays and reviews. The book links the fate of the labor movement to the transformations in the shape of world capitalism, to the rise of the civil rights movement, and to the activists and intellectuals who have played such important roles. Tracing broad patterns of political thought, the book offers important perspectives on the relationship of labor and the state, the tensions that sometimes exist between a culture of rights and the idea of solidarity, and the rise of conservatism in politics, law, and intellectual life. The book closes with portraits of five activist intellectuals whose work has been vital to the conflicts that engage the labor movement, public policy, and political culture.