This book combines the tools of political science, sociology, and labor history to offer a wide-ranging analysis of how unions have participated in politics in Britain, Germany, and the United States. Rather than focus exclusively on national union federations, Gary Marks investigates variations among individual unions both within and across these countries. By examining the individual unions that make up union movements, he probes beyond national descriptions of British laborism, German socialism, and American business unionism while bringing the analysis closer to the actual experiences of people who joined labor organizations. Among the topics Marks examines are state repression of unions, the Organizational Revolution, the contrasting experiences of printing and coalmining unions, and American Exceptionalism. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book combines the tools of political science, sociology, and labor history to offer a wide-ranging analysis of how unions have participated in politics in Britain, Germany, and the United States. Rather than focus exclusively on national union federations, Gary Marks investigates variations among individual unions both within and across these countries. By examining the individual unions that make up union movements, he probes beyond national descriptions of British laborism, German socialism, and American business unionism while bringing the analysis closer to the actual experiences of people who joined labor organizations.

Among the topics Marks examines are state repression of unions, the Organizational Revolution, the contrasting experiences of printing and coalmining unions, and American Exceptionalism.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"[T]his impressive work...offers paths toward new and rich understandings of American history."—The New York Times Book Review

Why socialism has failed to play a significant role in the United States—the most developed capitalist industrial society and hence, ostensibly, fertile ground for socialism—has been a critical question of American history and political development. Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks "survey with subtlety and shrewd judgment the various explanations" (Wall Street Journal) for this phenomenon of American political exceptionalism.

"Clearly written, intelligent, filled with new information" (Times Literary Supplement), this "splendidly convincing" (Michael Kazin, Georgetown University) work eschews conventional arguments about socialism's demise to present a fuller understanding of how multiple factors—political structure, American values, immigration, and the split between the Socialist party and mainstream unions—combined to seal socialism's fate.

"In peak form, two master political sociologists offer a must-read synthesis."—Theda Skocpol, Harvard University