Bøger af Erik Loomis

From the acclaimed author of A History of America in Ten Strikes, a sweeping account of the impact of organizers on United States history We are living through a tidal wave of protests and activism in America. These movements sometimes seem to spring from nowhere, but beneath them all is a deeper river of social change work known as organizing. Author of the celebrated A History of American in Ten Strikes (a Kirkus Reviews best book of 2018), Erik Loomis uncovers a rich and revealing history by turning to stories about key organizers throughout America's past. In twenty short biographies, Organizing America shows how one movement has influenced another over time--and how the movement leaders' personal histories influenced them toward changing the world. A chronological story with a vast sweep, Organizing America considers a cross section of social justice activists across time, race, gender, and movement, examining lives as varied as Benjamin Lay, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Eugene V. Debs, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Bob Moses, Saul Alinsky, Yuri Kochiyama, Harvey Milk, Alicia Garza, Bill McKibben, and many more. The result is a history of the United States viewed through some of its most important changemakers. With an introduction that explains what organizing is and how collective action works, Loomis sets a tone that is both practical and historical--providing context and inspiration for anyone seeking to step into the work of social change in America.

Recommended by The Nation, the New Republic, Current Affairs, Bustle, In These Times "e;Entertaining, tough-minded, strenuously argued."e;The Nation A thrilling and timely account of ten moments in history when labor challenged the very nature of power in America, by the author called ';a brilliant historian' by The Progressive magazine Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. In this brilliant book, labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers' strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about (and then provides an annotated list of the 150 most important moments in American labor history in the appendix). From the Lowell Mill Girls strike in the 1830s to Justice for Janitors in 1990, these labor uprisings do not just reflect the times in which they occurred, but speak directly to the present moment. For example, we often think that Lincoln ended slavery by proclaiming the slaves emancipated, but Loomis shows that they freed themselves during the Civil War by simply withdrawing their labor. He shows how the hopes and aspirations of a generation were made into demands at a GM plant in Lordstown in 1972. And he takes us to the forests of the Pacific Northwest in the early nineteenth century where the radical organizers known as the Wobblies made their biggest inroads against the power of bosses. But there were also moments when the movement was crushed by corporations and the government; Loomis helps us understand the present perilous condition of American workers and draws lessons from both the victories and defeats of the past. In crystalline narratives, labor historian Erik Loomis lifts the curtain on workers' struggles, giving us a fresh perspective on American history from the boots up. Strikes include: Lowell Mill Girls Strike (Massachusetts, 183040) Slaves on Strike (The Confederacy, 186165) The Eight-Hour Day Strikes (Chicago, 1886) The Anthracite Strike (Pennsylvania, 1902) The Bread and Roses Strike (Massachusetts, 1912) The Flint Sit-Down Strike (Michigan, 1937) The Oakland General Strike (California, 1946) Lordstown (Ohio, 1972) Air Traffic Controllers (1981) Justice for Janitors (Los Angeles, 1990)

A provocative analysis of labor, globalization, and environmental harm by the award-winning historian and author of A History of America in Ten Strikes. In the current state of our globalized economy, corporations have no incentive to protect their workers or the environment. Jobs moves seamlessly across national borders while the laws that protect us from rapacious behavior remain bound by them. As a result, labor exploitation and toxic pollution remain standard practice. InOut of Sight, Erik Loomisa historian of both the labor and environmental movementsfollows a narrative that runs from the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City to the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2013. He demonstrates that our modern systems of industrial production are just as dirty and abusive as they were during the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. The only difference is that the ugly side of manufacturing is now hidden in faraway places where workers are most vulnerable. In this Choice Outstanding Academic Title, Loomis shows that the great environmental victories of twentieth-century Americathe Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the EPAwere actually union victories. Using this history as a call to action,Out of Sightproposes a path toward regulations that follow corporations wherever they do business, putting the power back in workers' hands. ';The story told here is tragic and important.' Bill McKibben ';Erik Loomis prescribes how activists can take back our countryfor workers and those who care about the health of our planet.' Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)