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    It Started in Wisconsin

    avatarBy No Comments2 Mins Read
    Just got my copy of "In Happened in Wisconsin: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Labor Protest," edited by Mari Jo Buhle and Paul Buhle, with an introduction by John Nichols and an afterward by Michael Moore. It is published by Verso. (Truth in advertising: I wrote Chapter 15, "Wisconsin and US Labor.") Because of the effort to get this volume out quickly, I had not seen any of the other chapters. Now that I have the book–and almost immediately consumed it!–I think that Mari Jo and Paul assembled an excellent collection of articles that not only provide a good overview of the struggle, but they place it in the historical and cultural context of progressive and labor struggles in Wisconsin. I think folks will find it quite interesting, and I suggest it is essential for labor activists/intellectuals. To give a small sampling: the book is divided into five sections: How It Started in Wisconsin, The Right-Wing Assault, The Fight Begins, Labor, and Beyond Wisconsin.  Authors, in addition to Nichols and Moore, include Nick Thorkelson, Mari Jo Buhle, Tom Morello (of "Rage Against the Machine," and now serving as "The Nightwatchman"), Mary Bottari, Ruth Conniff, Paul Buhle, Patrick Barrett (who does a nice interview with Ben Manski), Dave Poklinkowski, Charity A. Schmidt, Frank Emspak, Gary Dumm, Matthew Rothschild, Rober Bybee, Sharon Rudahl, myself, and Ashok Kuman and Simon Hardy.

    Hope you will check it out, and spread widely!

     
     
     
    In solidarity–

     
     
    Kim Scipes

     

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    Kim Scipes, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Purdue University Northwest in Westville, IN. He is a global labor scholar, publishing AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country: Solidarity or Sabotage? in 2010. His latest book is titled Unions, Race, and Popular Democracy: Building a Progressive Labor Movement, and was published by Cornell University Press in August 2026. His web site is at https://tinyurl.com/Kim-Scipes. He can be reached at [email protected].

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