Review by Choice Review
In near epic proportions, Cowie (Cornell Univ.) covers in minute detail the "demise" of the mythic American working class during the depressing 1970s. Cowie's argument is a complex one, but his densely packed pages provide more than enough evidence. According to the author, the solidarity of the white ethnic working class, forged by the New Deal and sustained for the next three decades by the economic gains guaranteed by that political initiative, dissipated over the 1970s, culminating with the election of Ronald Reagan. While this is an argument made by many scholars in recent years, what sets Cowie's work apart is the way in which he uses cultural products to provide a fascinating look at how the backlash to sixties' radicalism, especially in terms of race, so shaped the seventies as the US economy went into decline. Cowie uses music, movies, and television of the 1970s to provide a history that is part cultural while at the same time political and, ultimately, a fascinating history of US labor. Engagingly written and meticulously researched, this is a must read for those interested in the evolution of the postindustrial US. Summing Up; Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. K. B. Nutter SUNY Stony Brook
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
There is no question that recent decades have been tough times for the so-called working class. The decline in power and influence of organized labor, foreign competition in industries like automotive and steel, and the shift to a service-oriented economy have eroded the chances for many workers to maintain the benefits of a middle-class lifestyle. Cowie charts this decline in a wide-ranging survey that moves from factory floors to union halls to the upper levels of corporate, union, and government bureaucracies. To his credit, Cowie doesn't allow broad themes to obscure the price paid by individual workers, and the testimonies of those who saw their economic position being squeezed is both disturbing and moving. Cowie's sympathies are obvious, and this is far from a balanced account. From the auto plants to mines to farm fields, he shows workers victimized by corporate greed and distant union and government officials. Still, as a portrayal of a decade that saw a great shift in the status of millions of people, this work is a valuable piece of social history.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
The New Deal liberalism that led to prosperity for American workers crashed in the 1970s, certainly one of the bleakest decades for blue-collar workers. So claims Cowie (history, Cornell Univ.; Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-One Year Quest for Cheap Labor) in this edifying survey of the politics, labor movements, and cultural landscape of the times. By mid-decade, the recession of 1974 unleashed stagflation (a failing economy combined with inflation), which many economists and politicians blamed on higher union salaries. At the end of the decade, union membership declined sharply and gains made by minorities and women were largely moot owing to job losses from foreign competition. Cowie includes excellent investigations of how motion pictures, television, and popular movies portrayed the decline of the working class. Such real and fictional working-class heroes as Bruce Springsteen, The Band, Archie Bunker, and John Travolta as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever defined the Seventies' most tragic legacy: the time when the "republic of anxiety overtook a republic of security." VERDICT Along with Francis Wheen's irreverent Strange Days Indeed: The 1970s: The Golden Days of Paranoia, this book will be sure to engross modern American historians and readers who enjoy serious contemporary history.-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A labor historian traces political and cultural forces that turned the 1970s into a swan song for the American working class.Cowie (History/Cornell Univ.;Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-Year Quest for Cheaper Labor, 1999, etc.) opens this rich but overlong book with an account of the many strikes and other signs of labor revival in the early '70s, when young, hip miners, steelworkers and others engaged in insurgencies reflecting widespread rank-and-file dissent. In that hopeful time,Rolling Stone hailed Eugene Debslike steelworker Eddie Sadlowski as an "old-fashioned hero of the new working class" when he made his failed bid for union leadership. By mid-decade, the United States was wracked by stagflation, Watergate and the continuing failures in Vietnam, and had begun making a watershed transition from the optimism of the New Deal to the diminished expectations of the present. As organized labor's power waned, the concept of a unified "working class" shattered and blue-collar whites took cultural refuge in Ronald Reagan's populist-right affirmation of God, patriotism and patriarchy. With incisive discussions of the era's popular culture, Cowie shows how the working class's evolving struggle to find a place in the eventful decade was evinced in music (Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee," Bruce Springstein's "Born in the U.S.A."), films (Joe, Saturday Night Fever) and TV shows (All in the Family). By the end of the decade, writes the author, the cry of "I'm dying here," made by Al Pacino playing a blue-collar bank robber in Dog Day Afternoon, could be seen as a lament for the disarray of blue-collar identity, writes the author. By 1980, the TV show Dallas, featuring amoral oil baron J.R. Ewing, was America's favorite, and "a Reaganesque cross-class alliance" united "white worker and rich man in common causeto repeal the 1960s." Packed with interesting stories, Cowie's book explores all the complexities of blue-collar yearning in the period and shows how the postNew Deal working class, whose needs the country had once addressed, became America's forgotten workers.An authoritative analysis that will appeal mainly to students and scholars.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
