Since World War I, says Joseph McCartin, the central problem of American labor relations has been the struggle among workers, managers, and state officials to reconcile democracy and authority in the workplace. In his comprehensive look at labor issues during the decade of the Great War, McCartin explores the political, economic, and social forces that gave rise to this conflict and shows how rising labor militancy and the sudden erosion of managerial control in wartime workplaces combined to create an industrial crisis. The search for a resolution to this crisis led to the formation of an influential coalition of labor Democrats, AFL unionists, and Progressive activists on the eve of U.S. entry into the war. Though the coalition’s efforts in pursuit of industrial democracy were eventually frustrated by powerful forces in business and government and by internal rifts within the movement itself, McCartin shows how the shared quest helped cement the ties between unionists and the Democratic Party that would subsequently shape much New Deal legislation and would continue to influence the course of American political and labor history to the present day. McCartin (history, SUNY, Geneseo) has written a comprehensive account of American labor relations during the World War I era, bringing into sharper focus a period of union-management struggles that has not been dealt with as fully up to now. His major theme is the struggle for industrial democracy in the workplace. Linked to this effort was organized labor's drive to unionize the mass production industries and to bring the federal government's regulatory authority in on their side. Although many of organized labor's gains during World War I were lost in the aftermath, McCartin believes that much of the New Deal labor legislation had its origins in the events of this earlier period. Recommended for labor collections of academic libraries.?Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., New York Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. “An outstanding book that should should stimulate a great deal of discussion among historians as well as current industrial relations practitioners.”— American Historical Review “A book well worthy of the attentions of any serious student of twentieth-century labour and industrial relations history. . . . It certainly demands a reconsideration of the nature and importance of the transformation of the social relations of work in the second vital decade of the ‘American century’ and, in particular, of the role of the Wilsonian wartime state in these developments.”— Journal of Industrial Relations “Strikingly, McCartin successfully integrates business, labor, economic, political, and social history. Chapters are tightly organized, artfully written, logically developed, and coherently united as part of the broader interpretation. . . . This historically nuanced study-the new standard work on the subject-should serve as a model for future work by scholars of wartime America.”— Journal of Economic History “Highlights the war years as a cauldron in which a new labor relations arrangement in America was forged. . . . A superb historical narrative."— Business History Review “With subtlety and insight, McCartin traces how the elastic notion of industrial democracy came to define, and quicken, the seismic labor conflicts of the World War I era.”— H-SHGAPE “ Labor’s Great War is an important book that aims to reshape our understanding of labor relations in the United States in the early twentieth century. . . . Superb.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review “A fascinating study.”— Michigan Historical Review “This is the best book ever written about American labor in the era of World War I. McCartin illuminates how workers and their adversaries battled over the meaning of 'industrial democracy' and how the outcome of that contest shaped our labor politics for decades to come. This bold and vigorous narrative is just the kind of synthesis of changing ideas and social forces we need.”—Michael Kazin, author of The Populist Persuasion: An American History This is the best book ever written about American labor in the era of World War I. McCartin illuminates how workers and their adversaries battled over the meaning of 'industrial democracy' and how the outcome of that contest shaped our labor politics for decades to come. This bold and vigorous narrative is just the kind of synthesis of changing ideas and social forces we need."—Michael Kazin, author of The Populist Persuasion: An American History A pathbreaking revisionist study of American workers in the Progressive Era Joseph A. McCartin is associate professor of history at Georgetown University. Used Book in Good Condition