The Yankee International

“An important and timely contribution to the growing literature on nineteenth century American radicalism. . . . Messer-Kruse does a superb job recapturing the radicalism of the American activists about whom he writes. . . . Messer Kruse’s book is a welcome advance by the New Labor History onto a terrain long held without real challenge by other old-fashioned Marxist scholars.” — Labour History Review

“An absorbing, well-researched study. . . . Should bring renewed attention to a crucial moment in the history of the American Left and inspire fresh thinking about the sources and potential for social change in our own time.” — New England Quarterly

“Messer-Kruse’s work is an entertaining examination of the events, circumstances, and personalities that led to the formation, organization, and disintegration of the American branch of Karl Marx’s International Workingmen’s Association.” — CHOICE

“This fresh and provocative study of the First International’s suppressed American branch shows that the idealism of antebellum reformers remained vital to the Gilded Age labor movement. Messer-Kruse’s reappraisal of 'Yankee socialism' not only scores points against Marxist orthodoxy; it may well lead scholars to reconfigure the history of the American Left.” — Carl J. Guarneri, author of The Utopian Alternative