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Jefferson R. Cowie

Stayin Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class Paperback – January 3, 2012

by Jefferson R. Cowie (Author)

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A wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade, Stayin' Alive is prize-winning historian Jefferson Cowie's remarkable account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the 1970s. In this edgy and incisive book―part political intrigue, part labor history, with large doses of American music, film and television lore―Cowie, with “an ear for the power and poetry of vernacular speech” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), reveals America's fascinating path from rising incomes and optimism of the New Deal to the widening economic inequalities and dampened expectations of the present.

Winner of the 2011 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians for the Best Book on American History

Winner of the 2011 Merle Curti Prize from the Organization of American Historians for the Best Book in American Social History

Winner of the 2011 Labor History Best Book Prize

Winner of the 2011 Best Book Award from the United Association for Labor Education

Print length

488 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The New Press
Publication date

January 3, 2012
Dimensions

6 x 1.4 x 9.2 inches
ISBN-10

1595587071
ISBN-13

978-1595587077
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Will long stand as the finest and most sophisticated portrait of politics and culture in the American 1970s.”
―E.J. Dionne

“Gives the best sense of the way that it felt to live through the decade … Cowie's book captures the contradictory nature of the 1970s politics better than almost any other ever written about the period.”
―Kim Phillips-Fein, Dissent

“One of the best books of 2010.”
―Joan Walsh, Salon

“Might be the most groundbreaking and original national history of a working class since E.P. Thompson's Making of the English Working Class.”
―Steven Colatrella, New Politics

About the Author

Jefferson Cowie is an associate professor of history at Cornell University. He is the author of Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor (The New Press), which received the 2000 Philip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

Product details

Publisher : The New Press; Illustrated edition (January 3, 2012)
Language : English
Paperback : 488 pages
ISBN-10 : 1595587071
ISBN-13 : 978-1595587077
Item Weight : 1.51 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1.4 x 9.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #77,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #209 in Sociology of Class
- #3,312 in United States History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
81 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		63%
4 star		24%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Joe Ward

Cowie gets tedious detailing the labor history of those times yet those ...

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2017

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I was a teen and young adult in the 1970s. I sort of remember those days but I really wasn't paying attention. This book explains events that I vaguely remember but didn't really care about back then, but should have. Cowie gets tedious detailing the labor history of those times yet those details are important for understanding the ultimate triumph of the ruling class over the workers. He talks a lot about George McGovern, Nixon and Carter, describing the utter perfidy exhibited by politicians and labor leaders alike, in the pivotal decade of the '70. The most interesting chapters were about the cultural history of the times. His discussions of Merle Haggard, Bruce Springsteen, and Devo, among others, are fascinating. Cowie does a good job making his case that the 1970s were the years the New Deal came to an end, organized labor was crushed, and the working class decisively lost the class war.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lou Zitnik

You can't pay me enough

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2018

Verified Purchase

Detailed look at a time when the working class found out that being well paid is not enough, and being poor doesn't help either, but there is no longer a place in the middle. Meant for a scholarly audience but interesting tidbits for a thoughtful skimmer.

2 people found this helpful

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Dave Easterday

Those were pretty bleak times to be an adult.

Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2019

Verified Purchase

A good history of that period. It seemed pretty bad, but I was a little kid then, so it was fun for me!

2 people found this helpful

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Reckless Reader

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win Dare to Snuggle Dare to Grin

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2017

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A great piece of historical writing that deserves a close reading by anyone who has ever wondered how we descended from the great days of FDR, JFK, LBJ, and the Warren Court to W, Drumpf, and the Roberts Court...a lively and well-researched account of the pivotal '70's, when corporate America decided to "re-take" the land from the new Sixties generation, and how the working class got ground to smithereens in the process - how the working class was gutted by economic and political decision making and policy implementation designed to keep them in check and submission so a new Gilded Age could emerge. The book becomes ever more relevant as the economy constricts more and more and narrows the choice for working people to either accept poverty or resist with all their might.

11 people found this helpful

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Helena Montana

t be so fortunate.

Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2018

Verified Purchase

I started my working career in 1970 and, I was lucky enough
to finish it in the twenty first century without ever being laid-off,
or having to relocate and find another job. Todays workers won.t
be so fortunate.

3 people found this helpful

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jaguillory

A must read.

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2020

Verified Purchase

Episodic and thoroughly explained. I read for a graduate colloquium. I have a much better understanding of the 1970s as understood through the lens of white working-class male identity. Cowie makes many claims that help to explain our current social-political environment.

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James Gast

Very readable history that is relevant to the 2016 elections

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

An excellent social, cultural and political overview of this pivotal decade. You'll learn about everything from the decline of organized labor to the origins of Taxi Driver.

4 people found this helpful

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Lou

A terrific book

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

I have been recommending this book to everyone I know--certainly the stand-out history of the seventies, beautifully conveyed, and deeply informing about our own time. Cowie's narrative is grounded in particulars. He has the rare talent of integrating political and economic history with cultural analysis. His review of relevant films and music creates a sense of the decade as a whole--changes in law, policy, and politics part of the same overall story as developments in expressive culture, without dumbing down the complexity and contradictions of either. His conclusion is radical but also nuanced, as is his use of other commentators (including those with whom he disagrees)--Lasch, Sennett/Cobb, Wolfe, et. al. A terrific book.

7 people found this helpful

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Archie B. Manvell

death agonies of the working class.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2011

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Jefferson Cowie has written an important book about the erasure of the working class from the politics and culture of American life a trend which began in the seventies and continues apace today. The book looks at the reasons for this and locates them in the familiar racial and gender squabbles that have so often cut across the possibility of a class identity in America. But he also advances some lesser known and perhaps therefore more interesting reasons for the decline of class based politics, he is particularly good on Nixon's utterly cynical attempts to detach white workers from the New Deal coalition and on the way unions let down their own members.However the best bits of the book are Cowie's analyses of popular culture and how it subtly recast workers away from a class based identity.
I haven' given the book five stars as Cowie sometimes labours his points(pun intended)and as such there are bits of the book that make slow reading; paradoxically for a self titled "labour historian" he is at his best discussing culture.

4 people found this helpful

M. Pascal Raggi

Un excellent ouvrage !

Reviewed in France on April 13, 2015

Verified Purchase

Le livre de Jefferson Cowie est fondamental pour comprendre les mutations culturelles, politiques et sociales qui ont touché la classe ouvrière des États-Unis dans les années 1970. L'auteur met très bien en évidence les changements concernant les populations ouvrières américaines tandis que le pays entre dans l'ère post-fordiste marquée par les effets destructeurs de la désindustrialisation. L'utilisation et le croisement classiques d'archives historiques et d'interviews de témoins est complétée par l'analyse de chansons emblématiques de la pop culture américaine qui évoquent le monde ouvrier américain : cela rend l'ouvrage agréable à lire. Bref, un excellent bouquin !

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