Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States

Description

Smith shows how a return to the fighting traditions of US labor history, with their emphasis on rank-and-file strategies for change, can turn around the labor movement. Subterranean Fire brings working-class history to light and reveals its lessons for today.

Sharon Smith is the author of Women and Socialism: Class, Race and Capital and Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States, both published by Haymarket books, as well as many articles on women's liberation and the U.S. working class. Her writings appear regularly in Socialist Worker newspaper and the International Socialist Review.

"There is no better time than the present for an updated edition of Subterranean Fire, as such a fire is clearly burning brighter than it has in decades, and yet so many people do not know how to connect the struggles of today to those of the past. Sharon Smith brings that history to life once again, blasting through the myths of the working class that Trump-era narratives cling to in order to connect us once again to the possibility of building broad solidarity." -Sarah Jaffe, author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt "A veteran worker-intellectual brilliantly addresses the crisis of the labor movement, skewering those who believe that renewal can come from the top down, and encouraging those who are fighting to rebuild it from the bottom up." - Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums