Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth. While this initially seemed like a novel concept, by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? In The Aristocracy of Talent, esteemed journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the...

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...

To ArcelorMittal Steel, Eliese is known as : Utility Worker, but this was never her dream. Fresh out of college, eager to leave behind her conservative hometown and come to terms with her Christian roots, Eliese found herself applying for a job at the local steel mill. The mill is everything she was trying to escape, but it&;s also her only shot at financial security in an economically devastated and forgotten part of America. In Rust, Eliese Colette...

A collection of newspaper articles about Dust Bowl migrants in California's Central Valley by the author of The Grapes of Wrath, accompanied by photos. Three years before his triumphant novel The Grapes of Wrath-a fictional portrayal of a Depression-era family fleeing Oklahoma during a disastrous period of drought and dust storms-John Steinbeck wrote seven articles for the San Francisco News about these history-making events and the hundreds of thousands...

"The full-time job is disappearing--is landing the right gig the new American Dream? One in three American workers is now a freelancer. This 'gig economy'--one that provides neither the guarantee of steady hours nor benefits--emerged out of the digital era and has revolutionized the way we do business. High-profile tech start-ups such as Uber and Airbnb are constantly making headlines for the disruption they cause to the industries they overturn....

In Out of Practice, Dr. Frederick Barken juxtaposes his personal experience with the latest research on the transformations in the medical field. He offers a cool critique of the "market model of medicine" while vividly illustrating how the seemingly inexorable trend toward specialization in the last few decades has shifted emphasis away from what was once the foundation of medical practice.

In the second edition of his essential book-which incorporates vital new information and new material on immigration, race, gender, and the social crisis following 2008-Michael Zweig warns that by allowing the working class to disappear into categories of "middle class" or "consumers," we also allow those with the dominant power, capitalists, to vanish among the rich. Economic relations then appear as comparisons of income or lifestyle rather than...

"The recent coronavirus outbreak has proven what Annie Auerbach has long championed: working 9-5 in an office doesn't work for most us. It's time to change the rules. We can be efficient and productive when we're allowed the freedom of flexibility--to meet deadlines working during the hours and in the places we choose. But before the coronavirus pandemic, only 47 percent of American workers had access to flexible working options. Annie Auerbach advises...

One of the most influential social commentaries ever written, E. P. Thompson's approach to the history of the common people, its arguments, and its methods cemented his place as an essential twentieth-century intellectual During the formative years of the Industrial Revolution, English workers and artisans claimed a place in society that would shape the following centuries. But the capitalist elite did not form the working class-the workers shaped...

"From Katherine Newman, award-winning author of No Shame in My Game, and sociologist Hella Winston, a sharp and irrefutable call to reenergize this nation's long-neglected system of vocational trainingAfter decades of off-shoring and downsizing that have left blue collar workers obsolete and stranded, the United States is now on the verge of an industrial renaissance. But we don't have a skilled enough labor pool to fill the positions that will be...