In 1877 the great robber barons of steel and rail-Vanderbilt, Fisk, Gould, and others-appeared to have consolidated their rule over land and labor in the post-Civil War period. In their quest for infinitely expanding wealth, they subjected the workers under their command to ever-increasing demands for more work and reduced their wages time and again to below starvation levels. As thousands were laid off in the economic downturn of the 1870s, protests developed among the workers, and police were mobilized to quell the disturbances.
It was not the greed and brutality of the capitalist overlords that provoked a mass rebellion. It was that they made life virtually impossible for the working people. The great strike was centered in rail and began in the summer of 1877 in response to yet another wage cut.
A group of bold rail workers in West Virginia walked off the job. With no union, no organization, and nothing but a desperate urge to reclaim their humanity, their initiative spread like wildfire to thousands of other rail workers from Baltimore to St. Louis in a rolling surge of strikes, mass mobilizations and confrontations with the armed minions of capital. Ultimately general strikes of all workers were precipitated in St. Louis, San Francisco and other cities.
The rail barons sought to put down the uprising with military force, mobilizing state militias, police and national guard troops, firing into the crowds, killing dozens. For them it was only a question of forcing the masses to do their bidding. They believed that they were the rulers, the workers were there to serve them.
This great labor battle awakened the true spirit of liberty and solidarity among the laboring masses. In their struggle against the tyranny of capital they became the one true embodiment of democracy and the only hope of progress for toiling humanity. They laid the foundation stone for the worker's movement in the U.S. It gave a huge impetus to the organization of labor unions as well as the beginnings of labor political action: the formation of a workers party.
Reading this book brings home the reality of the class struggle in the U.S. and helps us to understand how and why it developed as it did. It also helps us understand why this class struggle won't go away as long as capitalism exists. It helps us to appreciate the organized struggle of the workers as the only way forward for humanity in its quest for a truly livable planet.

1877: the naked face of capitalism in America. In the midst of a deep-going economic depression, bosses imposed massive layoffs and deep pay cuts, and workers responded. From Chicago to St. Louis to New York to Philadelphia, rail workers, iron workers, carpenters, meatpackers and others launched a wave of massive strikes and street protests. The bosses and their government mobilized all their forces against the workers: courts, the press, police, the national guard and federal troops. While the workers were eventually beaten in these battles, the lessons learned helped forge political class consciousness and lay the basis for further struggles.

Foner's book is an exciting history of these days. He quotes extensively from labor and capitalist press of the day, from speeches and declarations by workers' leaders, and from government reports and documents to give a real feel of the roots of the uprising and the conflicting interests that lay behind it. I particularly found useful the description of what different workers leaders did at the time-- from conservative trade union presidents to militant socialists. Also the challenge and experiences of native-born and immigrant workers fighting together against their common exploiters. There is a lot to learn from this book today!

While this book gives a rich detail of the day-to-day struggles in 1877, two others will help get a broader perspective on the key issues political posed: American Labor Struggles 1877-1934, by Samuel Yellen, and Revolutionary Continuity, Marxist Leadership in the U.S. 1948-1917, by Farrell Dobbs.

The great labor uprising of 1877 started when a strike by rail workers swept across the country and was joined by many thousand, including the unemployed. What this book clearly shows is how interconnected U.S. workers were-how mutually affected by economic disaster-and how willing to embark on massive and militant resistance. Are workers that different today? Are today's bosses-as they push for wage concessions and bailouts--that much different from the rail bosses of 1877? This book makes you think more seriously about the great events that could quickly develop out of today's economic downturn.

This is the first volume of Philip Foner's massive history of the Labor movement in the United States. In my opinion it is the best and most complete work of its kind in existence. Fonor did an extrordinary job of researching the original documents from the earliest era of American Labor and succedes in providing an emense amount of factual information while still telling a good story. If you want a detailed study of American Labor this is the only place to go. If you have a more casual interest I would recommend Labor's Untold Story by Richard Boyer, Herbert Morais.

What can I say? Paul Robeson put his money where his mouth is. He gave up millions for what he believed in and stood his ground. He fought for Black freedom and also took up the cause for poor whites and workers. Whether you agree with him or not, this man is one of America's greatest heroes! It is amazing how his life and contributions are overlooked. Buy this book and read about a great American hero.

As an oppressed minority of this country, many people from other backgrounds, mainly white peoples and those influenced by their media and such, believe that the black thought is a collective one; that all blacks have the same wants, feelings, desires, arguments, and dreams. This book illustrates the struggles of many peoples, expressly black ones, through the people themselves, through the language of their day. Our phlight in this country has been a constant struggle, and there have been, are, and will continue to be motifs present in all of our expressions, wheter literary, musical, artistic---WHATEVER. The language of these speeches is so beautiful and real, and when I am reading them I "feel" the words in my heart. Not only do these renderings grab you spiritually, but they teach a lesson by educating on our position as transplanted peoples here in the Americas; our position, I might add, as viewed by many diffenet people from various parts of the United States and the world abroad. These speeches have been so personally enriching to me, not only in proviving first-hand historical knowledge, but also in the lending to a greater understanding of our social, economic and political status and postion, and the facilitation of a critical thinking process which is necessary to rectify the problems that we face. It also seems that the overall progress to attain equality and such has come to a halt after the Civil Rights movement, and we have become coplacent with oue current position. In support of this observation, we have not written any great speeches or have had any major movements to the extent that we have had and done in the past. The dates of the speeches this book confirms my accertations. We have become complacent as a people, and complacency is what the mainstream wants of us. Please read this book and let it re-revolutionize your thinking, or at the very least, get your mind out of the sphere of complacency charaterizing us as a people. We cannot transcend our condition unless our mind first transcends it. Action has to have a plan backing it. I love this book.

Knowing absolutely nothing about the Black Panthers I picked up this collection one day and read nearly straight through it. I came away with what I think is a fairly good idea of the goals of the Black Panther Party, not the same one I had generally heard or been taught growing up. Instead of them being the black racists many tend to think they are, what would be the equal opposite of the KKK (who, versus the Panthers' few years of existence, have been operating for more than 100 years), I learned that they could be more adequately labeled as classists, in the Marxist-Lenin tradition. As Eldridge Cleaver, one-time minister of information for the Black Panther Party, "You speak of an 'undying love' for black people. An undying love for black people that denies the humanity of other people is doomed. It was an undying love of white people for each other which led them to deny the humanity of colored people and which has stripped white people of humanity itself." I don't see a lot of "hating whitey" there, as Horowitz and other conservatives would have you believe, but more of a gelling together of the dregs of humanity in an attempt to alter its condition, the stance that Malcolm X eventually evolved to, and, later, the Panthers.

Perhaps we as humanity have come a ways, maybe thanks to them, since the Panthers first took up arms, defying the police to beat, shoot or incarcerate them. I say this because eight years ago a similar movement began in the southern highlands of Mexico, another marginalized group taking up arms in order to say,"Take notice, we're not taking it anymore." Instead of being branded thugs and criminals, the Zapatistas captured the hearts and minds of the world and continue their quest for equal rights and protection under the law.

According to their own writings (the real beauty of this book), these guys are not the black KKK or black neo-nazis, contrary to some opinion.

I found the writings of Eldridge Cleaver, a one-time candidate for president, to be some of my favorite.

I'll close with a citation from Julian Bond, which I think sums up what the Black Panther Party was really about: "What the Panthers do more than anything else is they set a standard that young black people particularly want to measure up to...It's a standard of aggressiveness, of militance, of just plain forcefulness, the sort of standard we haven't had in the past. Our idols have been Dr. King who, for all his beauty as a man, was not an aggressive man." Even Dr. King began to take a more aggressive approach before he was gunned down. It's not hate or intimidation, but standing up for oneself as a man.

I recommend complementary readings of the Autobiography of Malcolm X and the Wretched of the Earth.

this Book should Bring People Together.The Black Panthers wanted a Better Today.still to this day we are facing the same Problems of which they spoke on 30 years back.no misguided words here their own words.a must Read for all to Better understanding Voices of Hope&a Better Tommorow for all future Generations.

The Black Panthers Speak is the BEST book out for Americans who want to know what the Panthers stood for. Nobody's interpretation of what the Panthers were about, but only the speeches, letters, and court transcripts of Black Panther members. This book should be read by Americans of ALL ethnicities. Use it to understand that the Black Panthers were a party for ALL people in the struggle for freedom.

Thank you Thomas Paine. A rare work....from a rare frame of mind.

Not many people ever move past the "church" phase of life. While reading the new testament I found many errors. Apparently Mr. Paine found many more.

I ask, as he does, if Jesus were a god, and god is all-powerful, then where is the sacrifice in Jesus committing himself to the cross? God (jesus) could return an infinite number of times to display this vainglory....which means nothing to a rational person; a human who has reached "the age of REASON."

This book clearly refutes the bible. People seem to be afraid of challenging its content...why is that? Is it because they will be shunned like Mr. Paine was? His contemporaries were too lazy to confront a work that obviously gave them the strongest influence on the citizens of their time.

"To be great is to be misunderstood." Another great writer wrote these words just after the time of Thomas Paine. His name: Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Mr. Paine: I understand you.

Your most humble and obedient servant, Jason Blanton

Paine, the man who coined the words "United States of America" and another of the USA's non-Christian founding fathers, has written what is easily the best book about deism, period. I personally do not accept the arguments from either design or the anthropic principle, so I am not a deist (luckily, you won't find nasty words like "anthropic" in this book, just some outdated English).

But what this book does for biblical criticism is wonderful. Paine burns the "Good News" to ashes with his wit and brilliant prose. This book, although it would clearly violate the separation of church and state to have it read in schools, should nevertheless be read by young people (I read it when I was 18) who are interested in religion. Paine honestly looks at the bible, and finds it (correctly) to be a pack of lies.

I won't quote from the book, but I can say that what you read in it will never be used by the religious right when they spout their drivel about our's being a Christian nation.

We are lucky to have had an American as bold as Thomas Paine to write the truth about religion, I only wish there were people like that today.

Thomas Paine's book against Christianity is a classic to Free-thinkers for its revolutionary courage and thought. I loved it for the honest, simple, eloquent language Paine brought to the work, and the countless errors and absurdities he found both in the Bible and the Church orthodoxy. The author gave the reader his opinions on religion, but his opinions consisted of far more than simple statements about what he thought of the doctrines of the Church. He gave his reasoning behind his denial of the virgin birth and mosaic account, and each reasoning is a blow to the religion's reasonable contentions. His belief in Deism and therefore a belief in God may be categorized as showing faith, but many do not realize the politics attached to the work. He wanted to take power away from the Church hierarchy while leading others from reactionary athiesm (believing in no God because of the belief was corrupted by the Church). Also, athiesm was not a rational conclusion during this time period because Newtonian science showed an intelligent system to the universe. The best recommendation for this book comes from those who did not give it 5 stars. They obviously disagree with the book's conclusions in some way. The atheist or agnostic cannot get over the fact that he accepted a God who revealed himself through science. The Christian says he missed the "true meaning" of the religion. They both remain silent about the evidence Paine brings against the Bible because they know he is correct, and so do I.

"British Labor and the American Civil War" is an excellent review of the evidence suggesting how British cotton mill workers perceived the U.S. Civil War. Dr. Foner's research confirms that the typical British laborer saw the U.S. Civil War as their own: the industrial managers would support the South, but they would support the North. The mill workers believed that slavery was a threat to free labor and stood by the North. The United States, in comparison to Britain, was a land where the working class had political influence. Despite hardships caused by the lack of Southern cotton, they maintained their support for the Union until victory.

Dr. Foner demonstrates excellent research skills and provides thorough footnotes. Thankfully, he provides a few images of original source material, which is very useful in understanding historical context. My only complaint was the lack of photographs, illustations and maps. I would have enjoyed understanding the geography better through maps, and I would have appreciated either photographs of illustrations from the period to gain a better appreciation of the events.

This book is highly recommended for individuals interested in the U.S. Civil War, British History, and Labor History.

This book is important for the historian who wishes to get a glimpse into the workings of the mind of an important figure in American Revolutionary history, but it doesn't stand on its own. It is written almost entirely as a response to Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France", so I would not recommend reading this one until and unless one has read that one. Otherwise, it is impossible to judge the fairness of the rebuttals of Burke's points, as one only sees them through Paine's perspective, and Paine is far from a fair and impartial debater; he misses no opportunity to belittle his opponent's arguments, and even his opponent himself. I would not be at all surprised to discover that he gives an inaccurate picture of what Burke had to say, particularly given that history speaks rather better of Burke's misgivings than of Paine's panegyrics. Both books were written before the Reign of Terror that resulted from the revolution in 1793; the second part of this book came out in early 1792. Also, history shows us just how silly some of Paine's claims for a Republican, representative government are: 200+ years of representative government in the US have hardly banished wars, or the high taxes associated with them, even though the world as a whole is far more democratic than it was at his time. He makes some good points, and certainly it is hard to stand up against him in favor of hereditary monarchy, but it is apparent that he failed to see that not ALL "democratic" movements were necessarily benificent, even if it would be hard to have much sympathy for the autocratic regime that they overthrow.

This book, above all others, reveals the breakdown of classical (libertarian) liberalism into the statist liberalism of today. Although the first part of the work, being a refutation of Edmund Burke's silly nonsense, is stellar, and is well worth reading. Regardless, the second part, the chapter on "Ways and Means" in particular, is composed of the most despicable, anti-liberty doctrines that one can find. What Paine basically proposed was a late 18th century form of the welfare state, replete with progressive taxation, subsidies for child birth, and other fine statist amenities. Thus, as all of these things are, in his words, to be claimed as rights, the title of this book comes to mean nothing whatsoever. It is indeed sad that Thomas Paine has gained such an enduring legacy as a friend to liberty. In truth, he is actually one of its worst enemies, as he combines a just zeal for resistance to oppression, revolution, and reason, he sabotages his entire political philosophy.

Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" is truly a classic defense of self government and reprsentative republicanism. Paine copmletely demolishes Edmund Burke's defense of aristocracy and monarchy as outmoded and absurd institiutions. Paine shows the immorality of monarchy and the plunder that it commits on it's own people through high taxes,unjust property laws,and priveleges for the nobility. Paine shows the virtues a representative system has over the monarchial form. He denounces aristocracy and monarchy as "frauds" and based upon tyranny. The first review by Will Murphy critsizing Paine as a sort of statist is way off the mark. Paine did recommend many ideals of the welfare state. It must be remembered he was speaking to an age where a large wealthy aristocracy ruled alongside the monarch, living in luxury off the high taxes drained from the middle, lower and working classes. Paine was one of the formost defenders of freethought in religion,speech, and ideas.To imply Paine was a sort of 18th century fascist is utterly absurd and ahistorical. Paine was not an enemy of property, just an enemy of aristocracy,who in his day did not obtain property by hard work. Usually property rights in monarchial nations were written to favor the wealthy and powerful, and grant them priveleges at the expense of the populace. Paine completely destroys the ideal that a chosen few were meant or ordained by God to rule. If you love freedom, you can't go wrong with the "Rights of Man".

Titon unquestionably knows his subject matter well, and this does come through in the book. Unfortunately, he drains the topic of all the spontaneity and joy that one associates with music with a pendantic and tendetious approach. His writing style, in my experience, aptly reflects his personality. I once took a college class from him when he served as a visiting professor at Carleton College in Minnesota. This book was a mandatory assignment...more royalties for the professor. If you are prepared to take the subject as seriously as Titon takes himself, this book could be for you. Otherwise, there are surely more accessible and informative works to begin a study of this distinctively American musical form.