ebooks Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class by Jefferson R. Cowie in History

Review

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Cowie gets tedious detailing the labor history of those times yet those ...By Joe WardI 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.4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Dare to Struggle Dare to Win Dare to Snuggle Dare to GrinBy Reckless ReaderA 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.60 of 63 people found the following review helpful. Recovering Broken DreamsBy John MetzgarThis book is an exhilarating combination of political; economic; and cultural history written as if somebody besides a history professor might be interested. I turned 27 in 1970; and though only semi-conscious of all the things that were going on as covered in Stayin' Alive; I lived the decade and experienced what Jefferson Cowie calls "the last days of the working class" almost exactly as he portrays it. There is still an American working class; and by any sensible social science definition; it is still a substantial majority of all the people who work for a living. What was lost in Cowie's "last days" was the possibility of a "vibrant; multi-cultural; and gender conscious" reorganization of a working class capable of effective collective action as a class. Cowie sometimes argues; sometimes merely "suggests;" and sometimes simply assumes that a "New Popular Front" of working-class unity was possible in the early years of what finally got tagged as the Me Decade. How this possibility was lost through a complex causal web involving the rise of the New Right; the limits of the New Deal; stagflation; Viet Nam; as well as white guys behaving badly in the face of racial and gender cultural revolutions is what Stayin' Alive both documents and mourns. The book is sometimes a downer because it is a story of worthy hopes dashed; but in telling that story it renews the possibility; or at least the idea of it; and that should help a new generation recover it as it steps into history downstream from the "sound of things falling apart" in the `70s. Jack Metzgar