From the author of On New Terrain, a historical examination of why American workers never organized in early industrial America and what it means today. Why has there been no viable, independent labor party in the United States? Many people assert “American exceptionalist” arguments, which state a lack of class-consciousness and union tradition among American workers is to blame. While the racial, ethnic, and gender divisions within the American working class have created organizational challenges for the working class, Moody uses archival research to argue that despite their divisions, workers of all ethnic and racial groups in the Gilded Age often displayed high levels of class consciousness and political radicalism. In place of “American exceptionalism,” Moody contends that high levels of internal migration during the late 1800s created instability in the union and political organizations of workers. Because of the tumultuous conditions brought on by the uneven industrialization of early American capitalism, millions of workers became migrants, moving from state to state and city to city. The organizational weakness that resulted undermined efforts by American workers to build independent labor-based parties in the 1880s and 1890s. Using detailed research and primary sources, Moody traces how it was that “pure-and-simple” unionism would triumph by the end of the century despite the existence of a significant socialist minority in organized labor at that time. “Terrific . . . An entirely original take on . . . why American labor was virtually unique in failing to build its own political party. But there’s much more: in investigating labor migration and the ‘tramp’ phenomenon in the Gilded Age, he discovers fascinating parallels with today's struggles of immigrant workers.” —Mike Davis, author of Prisoners of the American Dream

“A detailed and provocative study of how capital has changed since the 1980s and its effects on the working class and political parties in the USA.” —Scottish Left Review On New Terrain challenges conventional wisdom about a disappearing working class and the inevitability of a two-party political structure as the only framework for struggle. Through in-depth study of the economic and political shifts at the top of society, Moody shows how recent developments in capitalist production impact the working class and its power to resist the status quo. He argues that this transformed industrial terrain offers new possibilities for organization in the workplace and opens doors for grassroots, independent political action strengthened by reemerging labor and social movements. From the logistics revolution to the unprecedented concentration of business and wealth in the hands of the one percent, On New Terrain examines the impact of the current economic terrain on the working class in the United States. Looking beyond the clichés of precarity and the gig economy, Moody shows that the working class and its own self-activity are essential in the global battle against austerity. “[A] masterful and much-needed book.” —Solidarity “Immediately shakes the reader by offering a hard hitting, concrete and sober analysis of the transformation of both the capitalist and working classes of the USA.” —Bill Fletcher, Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided “He explodes myths about the gig economy and the potential to transform the Democratic Party. Readers will put the book down convinced that there is a way for workers to win.” —LaborNotes

“One of the leading intellectuals of the labor movement” explores the state of unions in the United States, as well as evaluating the forces working against them (Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe). In this thorough collection of inspiring and informed essays, Kim Moody, one of the world’s most authoritative and recognized labor writers, asks key questions: What has happened to union organizing in the United States? Is there an alternative to the strike? How does the increased presence of immigrant and women workers change the balance of forces? What strategies can workers use to counteract company “union avoidance” campaigns and bureaucratic “business unionism”? What is the role of socialists in the labor movement? Drawing on his own background as a working-class radical, the works of Karl Marx, and the everyday experiences of nurses, miners, autoworkers, and more, Moody sketches a comprehensive picture of the state of US labor—and points the way forward for a rank-and-file union movement that can win real change. Praise for Kim Moody “One most of the most experienced working-class organizers in the US over the past few decades.” —Monthly Review “[His] books and articles have for more than forty years provided essential analysis and strategy for the labor left.” —New Politics

"Carrying a union journeyman’s card, a few basic tools, and little else, these 'itinerant' or 'tourist' typographers criss-crossed the continent for more than a century, train-hopping from newspaper to newspaper, following the railroad tracks.... The tramps helped each other over the hard places and spread the craft of printing along the way. And by standing strong in solidarity, journeymen printers fought for the eight-hour day — and won." -- Publisher website.

For one week in late July of 1877, America shook with anger and fear as a variety of urban residents, mostly working class, attacked railroad property in dozens of towns and cities. The Great Strike of 1877 was one of the largest and most violent urban uprisings in American history. Whereas most historians treat the event solely as a massive labor strike that targeted the railroads, David O. Stowell examines America's predicament more broadly to uncover the roots of this rebellion. He studies the urban origins of the Strike in three upstate New York cities—Buffalo, Albany, and Syracuse. He finds that locomotives rumbled through crowded urban spaces, sending panicked horses and their wagons careening through streets. Hundreds of people were killed and injured with appalling regularity. The trains also disrupted street traffic and obstructed certain forms of commerce. For these reasons, Stowell argues, The Great Strike was not simply an uprising fueled by disgruntled workers. Rather, it was a grave reflection of one of the most direct and damaging ways many people experienced the Industrial Revolution. "Through meticulously crafted case studies . . . the author advances the thesis that the strike had urban roots, that in substantial part it represented a community uprising. . . .A particular strength of the book is Stowell's description of the horrendous accidents, the toll in human life, and the continual disruption of craft, business, and ordinary movement engendered by building railroads into the heart of cities."—Charles N. Glaab, American Historical Review

In the years following the Civil War, a veritable army of homeless men swept across America's "wageworkers' frontier" and forged a beguiling and bedeviling counterculture known as "hobohemia." Celebrating unfettered masculinity and jealously guarding the American road as the preserve of white manhood, hoboes took command of downtown districts and swaggered onto center stage of the new urban culture. Less obviously, perhaps, they also staked their own claims on the American polity, claims that would in fact transform the very entitlements of American citizenship. In this eye-opening work of American history, Todd DePastino tells the epic story of hobohemia's rise and fall, and crafts a stunning new interpretation of the "American century" in the process. Drawing on sources ranging from diaries, letters, and police reports to movies and memoirs, Citizen Hobo breathes life into the largely forgotten world of the road, but it also, crucially, shows how the hobo army so haunted the American body politic that it prompted the creation of an entirely new social order and political economy. DePastino shows how hoboes—with their reputation as dangers to civilization, sexual savages, and professional idlers—became a cultural and political force, influencing the creation of welfare state measures, the promotion of mass consumption, and the suburbanization of America. Citizen Hobo's sweeping retelling of American nationhood in light of enduring struggles over "home" does more than chart the change from "homelessness" to "houselessness." In its breadth and scope, the book offers nothing less than an essential new context for thinking about Americans' struggles against inequality and alienation.