The title of this book, cutely folksy, may help to attract some readers who would be intimidated or put off by something more accurate (captured in the subtitle), but it obscures the achievement of this splendid contribution by Priscilla Murolo and A.B. Chitty.

For that matter, even the history of labor subtitle doesn't fully convey what the author's are offering in their 332-page narrative. This is not simply a history of labor (forms of labor, the labor-process), though it's in there. Nor is it a history simply of the US labor movement, though that too is in there. It cannot even be described as a social history of those who labor, though that also assuredly is in there. It synthesizes all of these with an interpretation of the larger political, economic, and social history of the United States.

The books scope is suggested by the chapter titles: labor in Colonial America; the American Revolution; Slavery and Freedom in the New Republic; Civil War and Reconstruction; Labor versus Monopoly in the Gilded Age; Labor and Empire; America, Inc.; Labor on the March; Hot war, Cold War; the Sixties; Hard Times; Brave New World.

The fact that this coherent and absorbing volume is so easy to read can obscure, for the unwary reader, the fact that it is an incredible work of scholarly synthesis. An alert academic can see in its pages the bringing together and integration of a variety of recent contributions from the various fields that exist in the discipline. What might stand out as scholarly insights with appropriate footnotes simply blend here into a seamless narrative that carries the reader along the path of accumulating understanding.

Of course, the understanding generated reflects the author's own radical convictions. When they tells us that “the poet Walt Whitman saw in the increase of capitalist wealth “a sort of anti-democratic disease and monstrosity,” it is clear that they fully agree with Whitman. They assert that “the history of American labor is one of constant struggle, against enslavement, impoverishment, and repression, for democratic rights, economic security, and dignity.”

Nor are they inclined to sing a nostalgic hymn to glorious lost causes in our cold, cruel world. “The struggle has accomplished much,” they insist. “From the hours and conditions of labor to the regulation of occupational safety and health, to social welfare like minimum living standards for old and young or equal opportunity, even to the democratic franchise itself, many aspects of everyday life show the results of working people organized to advance their common interests.” These truths, so commonly obscured in the top-down, elitist way history is often taught and American realities are conveyed in the mass media, naturally flow from what the authors present to us in From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend.

At the same time, Murolo and Chitty seem inclined to agree with Eugene V. Debs that socialism embodies “the idea of liberty and self-government, in which this nation was born.” They share information about a variety of socialists, anarchists and communists, among whom they include Trotskyists, who were opposed to Stalinist policies in the Soviet Union, and their sympathies are clearly with the historic left. Such convictions result in this final paragraph:

With the collapse of Communism, the well-funded triumphalism among partisans of the market economy, the horror of September 11, and the multi-faceted horrors of the so-called war on terrorism, such rhetoric may seem a bit much for those who have heard (and perhaps uttered) such stuff before. It may certainly seem heady stuff for college undergraduates and working-class activists who come to this at the conclusion of the book. On the other hand, this is the spirit that permeates the book, and seems consistent with much of the material presented. Whether the past will flow into the future in the way the authors indicate remains to be seen. But the authors' radical optimism poses an intriguing and refreshing challenge for the terrible times in which we live.

Over the past few decades there has been a proliferation of one-volume from-the-bottom-up histories of US the laboring majority of the United States: Jeremy Brecher's Strike!, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Robert Takaki's A Different Mirror, Jacqueline Jones's A Social History of the Laboring Classes From Colonial Times to the Present, and Paul Le Blanc's A Short History of the U.S. Working Class (a personal favorite of this reviewer). It may be helpful to note how this one compares.

The writing is more popular, more straightforward, more accessible than the scholarly prose of Jacqueline Jones or than the eloquent intricacies of Ronald Takaki and yet there is an incorporation of the rich cultural and multi-cultural concerns that animate the work of Jones and Takaki. I have made substantial use, in classes I teach, of Takaki's magnificent multicultural history of the United States, and many of my students have come to share my love for that volume, but whereas his study fragments the historical experience into different chapters on Native Americans, the Irish, African Americans, Chinese immigrants, Eastern European Jews, etc., the Murolo-Chitty volume weaves together the many aspects of the multicultural stories into a unified, flowing narrative.

Jeremy Brecher's classic work focuses on class-struggle explosions. These punctuate the Murolo-Chitty account, but they are blended into broader contexts that give one a sense of “the whole story.” Zinn's incomparable People's History is spiced with a polemical thrust that is less explicit, more subtly integrated in this book. The American Revolution and Civil War, for example, come off more positively, less as upper-class manipulations (though such manipulations are pointed out). Le Blanc's succinct and readable narrative is one-third the length of that offered by Murolo and Chitty. But an immense amount of information is consequently packed onto each page of Le Blanc's book and in positive contrast, Murolo and Chitty are able to take more time in laying out the various points, including additional information and specific examples. This facilitates the reader comprehending more fully the story of the US working class.

Hardly the last word on the story of the US working class, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend provides valuable knowledge, rich insights, and challenging interpretations not only for those just learning about US and labor history, but also for experienced hands who can benefit from, and be stimulated by, a fresh and sometimes audacious retelling of the story.

While the Le Blanc volume is graced by some wonderful line drawings by labor muralist Mike Alewitz, the illustrations by Joe Sacco consist of marvelously drawn comic strip narratives whose delicious humor is enhanced by a recurring villain, drawn to resemble the artist, who gets all the best lines (almost). These help to highlight key points that the authors make about the Boston Massacre, slave labor and free labor, Mother Jones and the Ludlow Massacre, industrial era workers, the Flint Sit-Down Strike, migrant labor's heroine Jesse Lopez de la Cruz, postindustrial era workers, and the “blessings” of globalization.