Irving Bernstein (1916–2001)

An absolute tome, but it's all here. Some is grating--Bernstein covers a great deal of factional warfare within unions and government. Some is more exciting than fiction, like when Toledo pickets trapped industrialists in a factory, and those industrialists used an airplane to resupply them with teargas on the roof. More than anything, though, this book is a thorough recount of the industrial union movement, the birth of the CIO, the sit-down strike in America, the terrible position of show more blacks who could only find work as strike breakers, the roles of various Marxist organizations, and the intense personalities who dominated the industrial union movement. I wouldn't trust anyone's take on the Great Depression who hasn't read this book. show less

Third in a series on the American worker. It covers the social programs introduced in the Roosevelt administration,aid to dependant children,social security, unemployment insurance. There are very good biographical sketches of the people who led the reforms as Harry Hopkins.