“American exceptionalism”—the country's lack of a strong socialist movement or labor party—has puzzled historians for decades. The fall in private-sector union density has preoccupied labor economists (not to mention union leaders) for the past 40 years. Labor-market issues such as the “living wage,” overseas working conditions, and outsourcing have served as recent rallying points for both antiglobalization demonstrations and presidential campaigns. For a topic that interests such a large and diverse group, it is surprising that no comprehensive history of the labor movement has been recently undertaken.

Philip Yale Nicholson's Labor's Story in the United States is a courageous attempt at carrying out this assignment. Undoubtedly comprehensive, the volume covers the U.S. labor movement from colonial times to the George W. Bush administration. Nicholson does not, however, merely give a detached account of the major events and personalities. He clearly states his thesis in the introduction: “[A]side from some important and notable exceptions, labor has been able to organize when it has been in the interest of capital for it to do so. The owners have, for the most part, been able to call the shots” (p. xiii). The book traces this theme of workers' weakness throughout American history: indentured servitude during prerevolutionary times, slavery, dismal working conditions prior to Progressive-Era reforms, and, importantly, the plight of non-unionized workers during the postwar period of union ascendancy.

With colorful protagonists such as Eugene Debs, Samuel Gompers, and John Lewis, villains such as Henry Ford, the Pinkerton Detectives, and Wal-Mart, and clashes such as the Haymarket Riots, the Pullman Strike, and the Flint Sit-Down, Nicholson offers up some page-turning material. The story is at times riveting, and Nicholson deserves credit for bringing to life many forgotten chapters. He is especially effective at broadening the story of labor in the United States beyond Northern industrial workers, by integrating the struggle of slaves (and, later, free blacks) into the narrative. Although Nicholson makes the usual argument that capitalists used race to keep workers divided, his analysis of race and unions is remarkably nuanced. He neither absolves labor unions of their racist legacy nor dismisses them as backward institutions. He emphasizes the tolerant nature of the Knights of Labor, noting that women and blacks constituted 20 percent of its membership. Yet playing the race card seemed essential for political viability, and practical men such as the AFL's Samuel Gompers, while originally advocating racial equality, were ultimately willing to compromise in order to secure white membership.

Nicholson also challenges the prevailing wisdom that the labor movement peaked in the 1950s, proposing instead the years before World War I. He invites readers to consider the counterfactual wage profile—in the postwar era of strong labor demand, it was easy to confuse rising wages and generous benefits with union influence. Unions owed much of their gains during this period to agreements forged with big business and government: “The prosperity and power of the unions was now going to be tied to their relationship with the government, not their ability to serve their members” (p. 239). Nicholson effectively traces the roots of labor's decline to this period of complacency.

The book's key flaw is in its presentation of evidence. To most economists, the most striking example of this deficiency would likely be its use of statistics. Not a single table nor graph appears in the book, which is not to say that Nicholson does not make use of statistics. Instead, numbers are sprinkled throughout the text without sufficient context. For example, readers learn that unions represented “at least 300,000 workers” during the height of Reconstruction and are told that this was a period of strength for the movement, but unless one happens to know what that number was ten years earlier or ten years later, the figure by itself reveals nothing about the growth of the movement. The book would have benefited tremendously from a simple graph of union density from 1880 to 2000, a time-series that can be found in the work of Claudia Goldin (“Labor Markets in the Twentieth Century.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper H0058 [1994]) or Richard Freeman (“Spurts in Union Growth.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 6012 [1997]). Although there may be no universally accepted figures on nineteenthcentury union density, Nicholson could have at least reproduced these figures and discussed their validity.

Similarly, in trying to demonstrate that labor regulations were often disregarded during World War II, he notes that 88,000 workers died on the job between 1941 and 1945. Although this seems like a high number, the purpose of statistical analysis is to move readers beyond gut-level responses and to ground such figures in meaningful context. What was the accident rate in wartime England? What was the rate in the United States immediately before and after the war?

Many of Nicholson's statistical claims are unsubstantiated. In noting the historically high levels of inequality in today's labor market, he claims that “the gap between those who created wealth and those who owned or controlled it was never greater (with the possible exception of the era of plantation slavery), nor was there any other large industrial nation on earth where that social gap was expanding in any comparable way” (p. xii). Nicholson does not cite any statistical source to support this argument, which should not surprise any economic historian—obtaining statistical sources on inequality before the Census began to record household income in 1940 has been a key challenge to the field. Moreover, the works of Emmanuel Saez and others have demonstrated that the growth of wealth and income inequality in the United Kingdom since 1970, although not as dramatic as that in the United States, has followed a similar pattern. The United Kingdom has historically had a strong, socialist labor movement; the growth in inequality there undercuts any hypothesis that emphasizes the link between the growth of inequality and the decline of unions.

Nicholson does better when he moves away from statistics. He shows sensitivity in describing the political compromises labor's early leaders were forced to make and he occasionally cites primary sources to describe the experiences of workers themselves.

For the most part, however, his analysis is top-down. He cites aggregate trends, describes the campaigns of labor's “great men,” and summarizes the details of relevant legislation. Despite these flaws, Nicholson's passion for his subject rings true. He fights to prove his thesis with every weapon at his disposal, even if he is able to wield some with more agility than others. This is unfortunate because his more errant shots open him up to charges that his work is a diatribe against the ills of capitalism. Many readers would undoubtedly agree that there were—and continue to be—many such ills to decry, and one wishes that Nicholson had preserved the a priori credibility of his arguments by choosing his tactics more prudently.