Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the United States Working Class (Haymarket) [Hardcover]

Mike Davis (Author)

Book Description

Series: Haymarket | Publication Date: April 1, 1986

Mike Davis's exegesis attempts to answer the question : Why has the world's most industrially advanced nation never spawned a mass party of the working class? A documentation of the new economic and political forces ranged against us on both sides of the Atlantic.

Editorial Reviews

Review

. . . a superb documentation of the new economic and political forces ranged against us on both sides of the Atlantic. -- Lee Bridges, Race and Class

. . . brilliant, provocative, and exhaustively researched. -- Scott Malcomson, Village Voice Literary Supplement

. . . perceptive and rigorous. -- David Montgomery, The Nation --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Mike Davis lives in Papa'aloa, Hawaii. He is the author of City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear and most recently Magical Urbanism and Late Victorian Holocausts. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Verso Books (April 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0860911314
• ISBN-13: 978-0860911319
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,585,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mike Davis is the author of several books including City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, Planet of Slums, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in Papa'aloa, Hawaii.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful history of unions and the American left, July 28, 2006

By 

M. A. Krul (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class (Paperback)

"Prisoners of the American Dream" is a two-pronged attack by Mike Davis on the general reactionary tendencies of the 1980s.

The first half of the book is a history of American unions and their relations to attempts to produce an actual progressive, leftist "Labor Party" on American soil. Davis does this in a very in-depth, well-sourced manner which will satisfy even a specialist in the subject. He explains the failures of creating a socialist alternative in the United States as a by no means pre-ordained result, but rather the consequence of contingent factors, among which are the intransigent conservatism and reformism of much of the union leadership (in particular the AFL), the general conservative party machine nature of the Democratic Party, and interethnic rivalries among the workers. This history of the left and the unions goes on until about the Eisenhower administration, then stops as Davis picks up his second line of attack in the second part of the book. One warning though: Davis seems to presume that the reader is already well-versed in the history of American unionism and in American socio-political terminology in general, making it quite difficult at times to follow for the (foreign) layman. The book could have been better with a good explanatory register of names.

The second half of the book is basically an attack on the neoliberal resurgence under Reagan and the complicity of the rightist Democratic Party to the same. Davis is clearly quite outraged at the general conservatism of what is supposed to be America's more progressive political party, and spends many pages outlining the failures of the Democratic leaders. He underlines his arguments with many a spiffy statistic for this purpose. However, much time has already passed since 1987, and his rather superficial and one-sided attack on everything to the right of Jesse Jackson is preaching to the choir. Most useful in this part is the epilogue, where he makes a series of political predictions about both parties based on his analysis, many of which have since turned out to be surprisingly correct. Yet one can skip the whole second part of the book without any real problem.

Generally the book is well-reasoned but relatively dry and dense. It could have done with a bit more livening up at times, and Davis tends to repeat himself just a little too much. Recommended to socialists of all stripes interested in the history of (radical) unions in America.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not His Best Writing, March 27, 2008

By 

Elderbear (Loma Linda, Aztlan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class (Paperback)

Davis is usually an excellent writer. Even his dense writing in Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World can be readily parsed and understood. His book on the Avian Flu is one of the best popular treatments of the issue and is well regarded by epidemiologists.

But Prisoners seems to be Davis' painting in the closet. As his other books get better, this one seems to degrade. He is inexcusably comfortable using pseudo-academic jargon until the reader longs to read a pretentious post-modern analysis of quantum physics.

A second fault is Davis' failure to include a glossary or acronym dictionary. He flings around names of obscure labor leaders, organizations, and movements without providing a reasonable amount of explanation (get a comprehensive guide to the American labor movements to help you keep track of who is doing what to whom).

Those gripes aside, Davis tackles a weighty question: "Why has the United States not developed a significant Labor or Social Democrat party?"

There is a wealth of labor history in this book. Unfortunately, the epic basically ends in the mid 80's. This vast stream of history makes it easier to comprehend how Carter's move to the right has snowballed to the insane situation in United States politics where Hilary Clinton is damned for being a "liberal" (virtually any time in the 20th century she would have been considered center-right).

I'm glad to have read this book. I'm glad I'll not have to read it again. I've now (I believe) read all the books that Davis has written. He continues to be an important and skilled American writer ... but this book doesn't exhibit his craft in the best light.