David Brody

Labor history, industrial relations, and the crisis of American labor

In this look at the disciplinary history of industrial relations and labor history, the author focuses on the long period of disassociation between the two fields and the growing contact between them in the 1980s. He suggests that industrial relations scholars became more receptive to historical modes of thought when events such as the decline in union membership (starting in the mid-1970s) and the sharp recession of 1981–82 proved that industrial relations could not be treated like a static system, describable by invariant laws of labor economics. Similarly, he argues, labor historians, who were able to concentrate on writing “history from the bottom up” during the era of mature collective bargaining, have recently shown a revived interest in the study of institutions, politics, and power.

The American labor movement

This collection of essays, originally published by Harper and Row in 1971, traces the development of the American labor movement and its evolution from the first trade union. The contributors challenge Perlmans Wisconsin Theory and provide an understanding of the continuities between the labor movement of 1928 and that of 1970.

Book Review: Historical Studies: The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880–1960The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880–1960. By TomlinsChristopher L., New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. xvi, 348 pp.

included in the present volume, but it is the only one that presents previous theories as more than straw men. Unfortunately, the editor chose to follow this piece with a chapter by Markovsky on justice. The effect, though presumably unintended, is to provide an example of exactly what Komorita and Leung have identified as a major problem in the existing literature. Carnevales chapter on accountability is a competent summary of an important issue. Though not a finished piece in itself, it will likely lead to important work. Finally, Brandstatters ummary of his recent work on social emotions and group decision making is a welcome addition of a most important European perspective. The impressive record of his research group is all too often ignored by American researchers. This article provides an important source for anyone pursuing research on group decision making.

39.50 cloth,

It is also remarkable how alike in structure and substance the two books are. Both distill more than a decades research, reflection, and writing by their respective authors, and both combine a majority of previously published pieces with original contributions (two new essays by Montgomery and three by Brody). The books, moreover, complement each other in basic ways. Montgomerys essays are especially rich for the world of the latenineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American worker, Brodys for the universe of the worker from the 1920s to the present. Yet Brodys opening essay succinctly synthesizes United States labor history from the late nineteenth century through the World War I era, while Montgomerys final essay does the same for the years from the New Deal to Jimmy Carter. If Montgomery chooses to focus primarily on the worker at the point of production (that is, shop-floor history) and Brody on the institutional setting (trade unions and the labor movement), the former acknowledges the saliency of trade unions to working class history and the latter stresses the intrinsic importance of shop-floor influence. For both scholars, moreover,