Philip Sheldon Foner (1910–1994)

This is not just a storey of a massive lack of justice, it is a warning to us all, that you have to treat the people that you don't like with as much respect, and honesty, as the ones that you do.

Joe Hill was a trouble maker to the elite of Utah: he was a member of the IWW (the Industrial Workers of the World); something between a trade union and a political grouping looking for a proletarian revolution. With the aid of the Church of Latter Day Saints, who naturally believe that the rich show more have God on their side, the bourgeoise of the state wanted him gone.

Hill became tentatively linked to a shooting and his enemies saw their chance: from that moment on, Joe Hill was never going to get a fair trial. Just how unfair it was, is hard to believe.

Hill was shot, murdered by the state. The 'victors' became vilified and Hill, a hero. Why is history so often more just than the present? show less

Philip Foner was a well-known historian of the US labour movement, editor of the works of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jack London, etc., frequently in trouble because of his Marxist associations. In recent years he's come under criticism for apparent plagiarism in some of his works.

Professor Foner examines Mark Twain's published and unpublished views on a wide range of the social and political issues of the day, reminding us that, tempting as it is just to enjoy him as a humorist, he show more was also a very moral writer, with strong — and rarely orthodox — views on all sorts of questions. Unlike a lot of very principled writers, he was also not afraid to admit that he was wrong after listening to argument: there were many questions where he impetuously leapt in wrong foot first and then came back with a different, more considered position after talking to people who actually knew something about it.

Of course, the big one is slavery: Twain grew up in a slave-owning family and community in the South and never seems to have questioned the rightness of that until he was well into adulthood, but when the penny finally dropped he produced some of the most influential and sympathetic literary accounts of the human cost of slavery in "A true story", Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson.

Twain also overcame initial prejudices to become a defender of all oppressed racial minorities in America, including the Chinese workers he saw being beaten up during his time in California. His attempt to conquer antisemitism with his essay "Concerning the Jews", however, was a classic case of write first, think later. With the best of intentions he managed to perpetuate all sorts of damaging anti-Jewish stereotypes — it even ended up being (selectively) quoted in antisemitic texts of the 1930s. Feminism was another area where he started out mocking but soon became a convert.

Foner doesn't quite manage to claim Twain as a Marxist (he did, after all, engage in nearly as many unsuccessful capitalist business schemes as Balzac), but he does find plenty of evidence that he consistently supported workers' rights to decent conditions and a fair wage, and encouraged them to organise in trade unions to defend those rights. Towards the end of his life he also became a vocal critic of all forms of imperialism, including the US seizure of the Philippines and the British war in South Africa; his "Soliloquy of King Leopold" is credited with helping to end some of the worst abuses in the Congo. show less

This is a book which fails to understand its own purpose.

Joe Hill was a labor songwriter who was arrested under peculiar but suspicious circumstances for a murder committed in Salt Lake City. He did show signs of having been the murderer: There was reason to believe that the murderer had been shot, and Hill had a bullet wound in his chest. Arresting him was not unreasonable. Putting him on trial was more dubious. Convicting him on the available evidence was absurd.

But Hill was convicted and show more executed -- and became a labor martyr as a result. And this book is about the martyr, not the man. Foner goes to great lengths to attack the trial. He makes no effort at all to study what actually happened. If Hill was innocent, then who was guilty? Why did Hill conduct a defense that can only be called eccentric? Why would he not supply an alibi? Very little about the case makes sense. Foner ignores all of that.

Because Hill became a labor icon, his case remains controversial. Some believe implicitly in his innocence, others in his guilt. Those who want the truth are often stymied. And this book does nothing at all to clarify the matter. Those who want a pro-Hill book which is nonetheless more useful and more complete are referred to William M. Adler's The Man Who Never Died, which at least tries to address the issue of what really happened a century ago -- and finds very good reasons to think Joe Hill was innocent. Or try Gibbs M. Smith's Joe Hill. It is the one book I've read which made me think the author actually had an open mind. show less

Very decent collection of works. Regarding the included biography written by Philip Foner, I found that it did a reasonably good job of highlighting the influences and life experiences that affected Jack London's outlook on society and politics. It also helped provide some much-needed context for some of London's works included in the collection.
The different works by London that were included were generally good, although I felt that they varied somewhat in their exact quality. I found the show more essay titled "The Tramp," as well as "In the London Slums" (excerpts from "The People of the Abyss") to be interesting, as they highlighted some of London's views through his personal experiences. Additionally, London's review of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" proved interesting, especially having previously read the work.
In short, I would recommend the collections of works. While not agreeing with everything, I did find much of it to be interesting and thought-provoking. show less