Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working ClassWinner of the 2011 Merle Curti award, an epic account that recasts the 1970s as the key turning point in modern U.S. history, from the renowned historian A wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade, Stayin’ Alive is prizewinning 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. |
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Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class Jefferson Cowie Limited preview - 2010 |
Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class Jefferson Cowie No preview available - 2010 |
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administration AFL-CIO American Archie Archie Bunker argued Arnold Miller bill Blue blue-collar Bruce Springsteen campaign civil rights coalition Collar Colson Files Box country music crisis cultural Deal decade declared Democratic Party disco early seventies economic election ethnic explained Farah federal fight film full employment George McGovern George Meany George Wallace going GSMP Haldeman hope Humphrey Humphrey-Hawkins industrial inflation insurgencies issues Jimmy Carter Kennedy Labor Law Reform labor leaders labor movement leadership liberal Lordstown Majority March ment Merle Haggard miners Norma Rae organized labor percent political populist postwar president presidential problem race racial rank and file Reagan Republican Richard Nixon Ronald Reagan Sadlowski Senator sixties social song Springsteen steel strategy strike struggle tion UMWA union University Press victory Vietnam vote voters wages Washington Post White House white working-class women workers working-class Yablonski York