In the first documented book-length study of this violent confrontation, Sidney Fine portrays the dramatic events of the 1936-37 strike that catapulted the UAW into prominence and touched off a wave of sit-down strikes across the land. Basing his account on an impressive variety of manuscript sources, the author analyzes the strategy and tactics of GM and the UAW, describes the life of the workers in the occupied plants, and examines the troubled governmental and public reaction to the alleged breakdown of law and order in the strikes. In addition, Dr. Fine provides vivid portraits of Governor Frank Murphy and the major figures on both sides of the conflict: Alfred Sloan, Jr., William Knudson, Robert Travis, Roy Victor, and Walter Reuther, Homer Martin, and Wyndham Mortimer. Of particular interest today are the author's concluding remarks regarding the similarities between the sit-down strike movement of the 1930's and the civil rights movement and the college sit-ins of our own era.

The GM sit-down strike marks the close of one era of labor-management relations in the United States and the beginning of another. Professor Fine has provided us with the definitive account of that momentous conflict.

Although historians have devoted a great deal of attention to the development of federal government policy regarding civil rights in the quarter century following World War II, little attention has been paid to the equally important developments at the state level. Few states underwent a more dramatic transformation with regard to civil rights than Michigan did. In 1948, the Michigan Committee on Civil Rights characterized the state of civil rights in Michigan as presenting "an ugly picture". Twenty years later. Michigan was a leader among the states in civil rights legislation. Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights documents this important shift in state level policy and makes clear that civil rights in Michigan embraced not only blacks but women, the elderly, native Americans, migrant workers, and the physically handicapped.

Sidney Fine's treatment of civil rights in Michigan is based on an exhaustive examination of unpublished, published, and interview sources. Fine relates civil rights developments in Michigan to civil rights actions by the federal government and other states. He focuses on the administrations of the three governors -- Democrats G. Mennen Williams (1949-1960), and John B. Swainson (1961-1962), and Republican George Romney (1963-1969) -- and the roles they played in furthering civil rights in Michigan, as well as other politicians and policymakers.

Students of state history, civil rights history, and those interested in post-World War II history will find few accounts as broad ranging as this study of state civil rights legislation during the years the book covers.