Skip to main content

This Week in People’s History, Nov 21–27

Portside
Striking airline machinists walking off the job Airline Strikers Win (in 1958), Greenhouse Gas Census (2013), Secret Combat Deaths (1918), Gun Control, Anyone? (1993), OSHA Doesn't Crack the Whip (1983), Sojourner Truth, Farewell (1883), Battle or Massacre? (1868)

This Week in People’s History, Oct. 24–30

Portside
Image of a rally calling for an increased minimum wage Minimum wage mandated (in 1938), City water comes to Boston (1848), Anyone know Choctaw? (1918), London says, Victory to the N.L.F! (1968), Good-bye to Penn Station (1963), Europe says No to nukes (1983), Mars attacks (1938)

One Big Union

Michael Kazin The Nation
The Red Scare and the fall of the IWW. A new history examines the lost promise and fierce persecution of the IWW.

The Presidential Campaign of Convict 9653

Thomas Doherty The Conversation
In the election of 1920, Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, polled nearly a million votes without ever hitting the campaign trail. Debs was behind bars in the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, serving a 10-year sentence for sedition. It was a not a bum rap. Debs had defiantly disobeyed a law he deemed unjust, the Sedition Act of 1918.

War Fever

Eric Foner The Nation
The crusade against civil liberties during World War I.

books

Who Betrayed Us? The Failure of the German Revolution, 1918-19

Neal Ascherson London Review of Books
A new book on the ill-fated German revolution is exhaustive while casting doubt on the possibility of a successful workers’ uprising. The reviewer prefers an out-of-print work that faults the Social Democratic right for saving the extant ruling class

1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

Jochen Bittner New York Times
Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign recalls one of the most disastrous political lies of the 20th century.
Subscribe to World War I