Books about Unionism from Amazon.com

During the 1970s a group of Protestant paramilitaries embarked on a spree of indiscriminate murder which left thirty Northern Irish Catholics dead. Their leader was Lenny Murphy, a fanatical Unionist whose Catholic-sounding surname led to his persecution as a child for which he took revenge on all Catholics.
Not for the squeamish, The Shankill Butchers is a horrifyingly detailed account of one of the most brutal series of murders in British legal history--a phenomenon whose real nature has been obscured by the political and violent context from which it sprang..
Price: $29.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Although North Carolina was a "home front" state rather than a battlefield state for most of the Civil War, it was heavily involved in the Confederate war effort and experienced many conflicts as a result. North Carolinians were divided over the issue of secession, and changes in race and gender relations brought new controversy. Blacks fought for freedom, women sought greater independence, and their aspirations for change stimulated fierce resistance from more privileged groups. Republicans and Democrats fought over power during Reconstruction and for decades thereafter disagreed over the meaning of the war and Reconstruction.

With contributions by well-known historians as well as talented younger scholars, this volume offers new insights into all the key issues of the Civil War era that played out in pronounced ways in the Tar Heel State. In nine essays composed specifically for this volume, contributors address themes such as ambivalent whites, freed blacks, the political establishment, racial hopes and fears, postwar ideology, and North Carolina women. These issues of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras were so powerful that they continue to agitate North Carolinians today.

Contributors include David Brown, Judkin Browning, Laura F. Edwards, Paul D. Escott, John C. Inscoe, Chandra Manning, Barton A. Myers, Steven E. Nash, Paul Yandle, and Karin Zipf. The editor is Paul D. Escott..
Price: $21.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

New Orleans was the largest city—and one of the richest—in the Confederacy, protected in part by Fort Jackson, which was just sixty-five miles down the Mississippi River. On April 27, 1862, Confederate soldiers at Fort Jackson rose up in mutiny against their commanding officers. New Orleans fell to Union forces soon thereafter. Although the Fort Jackson mutiny marked a critical turning point in the Union's campaign to regain control of this vital Confederate financial and industrial center, it has received surprisingly little attention from historians. Michael Pierson examines newly uncovered archival sources to determine why the soldiers rebelled at such a decisive moment.

The mutineers were soldiers primarily recruited from New Orleans's large German and Irish immigrant populations. Pierson shows that the new nation had done nothing to encourage poor white men to feel they had a place of honor in the southern republic. He argues that the mutineers actively sought to help the Union cause. In a major reassessment of the Union administration of New Orleans that followed, Pierson demonstrates that Benjamin "Beast" Butler enjoyed the support of many white Unionists in the city.

Pierson adds an urban working-class element to debates over the effects of white Unionists in Confederate states. With the personal stories of soldiers appearing throughout, Mutiny at Fort Jackson presents the Civil War from a new perspective, revealing the complexities of New Orleans society and the Confederate experience..
Price: $19.80 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Thousands of African Americans poured into northwest Indiana in the 1920s dreaming of decent-paying jobs and a life without Klansmen, chain gangs, and cotton. Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism by Ruth Needleman adds a new dimension to the literature on race and labor. It tells the story of five men born in the South who migrated north for a chance to work the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the steel mills. Individually they fought for equality and justice; collectively they helped construct economic and union democracy in postwar America. George Kimbley, the oldest, grew up in Kentucky across the street from the family who had owned his parents. He fought with a French regiment in World War I and then settled in Gary, Indiana, in 1920 to work in steel. He joined the Steelworkers Organizing Committee and became the first African American member of its full-time staff in 1938. The youngest, Jonathan Comer, picked cotton on his father's land in Alabama, stood up to racism in the military during World War II, and became the first African American to be president of a basic steel local union. This is a book about the integration of unions, as well as about five remarkable individuals. It focuses on the decisive role of African American leaders in building interracial unionism. One chapter deals with the African American struggle for representation, highlighting the importance of independent black organization within the union. Needleman also presents a conversation among two pioneering steelworkers and current African American union leaders about the racial politics of union activism..
Price: $10.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This important and valuable study seeks to evaluate the contribution of culture to Unionist identities before and after the Second World War. In weaving analysis of literary landmarks and civic events together, Gillian McIntosh succeeds in illuminating the complexity of meanings and values associated with the Northern Irish State since 1920.

Starting with the legitimizing histories written in the decade after the Great War and concluding with the elaborate civic ritual of Elizabeth II’s coronation visit to Northern Ireland in 1953, the culture of Unionism emerges as a web of contradictory “performances” in which alternative visions for the State have to compete. Some of these moments are mediated through broadcasting, and one of the main strengths of this study is a unique examination of the policy and programming of the BBC. The impact of contemporary literary production is also evaluated through a selection of the most prominent Protestant writers, Hewitt, Rodgers and MacNeice.
Price: $28.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Recovering an important moment in early civil rights activism, Korstad chronicles the rise and fall of the union that represented thousands of African American tobacco factory workers in Winston-Salem, N.C., in the first half of the 20th century..
Price: $17.54 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Why have Americans, who by a clear majority approve of unions, stopped joining them in greater numbers than ever before? This book answers that question by comparing the American experience with that of Canada, where approval for unions is significantly lower than in the United States, but where since the mid-1960s, workers have joined organized labor to a much greater extent. Given that the two countries are outwardly so similar, what explains this paradox? This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of both countries using, among other things, a unique survey conducted in the United States and Canada by the Ipsos Reid polling group.

The authors discover that the reluctance of employees in the United States to join unions, compared with those in Canada, is rooted less in their attitudes toward unions, and more in the former country's deep-seated tradition of individualism and laissez-faire economic values." Canada has a more statist, social democratic tradition, which is in turn attributable to its Tory and European conservative lineage. Canadian values are therefore more supportive of unionism, making unions more powerful in the northern country and paradoxically lowering public approval of unions. This is less true in the United States, where unions exert less of an influence over politics and the economy..
Price: $32.07 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The history of trade unionism in the United States is in part a summary of work an labor history

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Price: $0.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]