“An outstanding book that should should stimulate a great deal of discussion among historians as well as current industrial relations practitioners.”—American Historical Review
“A book well worthy of the attentions of any serious student of twentieth-century labour and industrial relations history. . . . It certainly demands a reconsideration of the nature and importance of the transformation of the social relations of work in the second vital decade of the ‘American century’ and, in particular, of the role of the Wilsonian wartime state in these developments.”—Journal of Industrial Relations
“Strikingly, McCartin successfully integrates business, labor, economic, political, and social history. Chapters are tightly organized, artfully written, logically developed, and coherently united as part of the broader interpretation. . . . This historically nuanced study-the new standard work on the subject-should serve as a model for future work by scholars of wartime America.”—Journal of Economic History
“Highlights the war years as a cauldron in which a new labor relations arrangement in America was forged. . . . A superb historical narrative."—Business History Review
“With subtlety and insight, McCartin traces how the elastic notion of industrial democracy came to define, and quicken, the seismic labor conflicts of the World War I era.”—H-SHGAPE
“Labor’s Great War is an important book that aims to reshape our understanding of labor relations in the United States in the early twentieth century. . . . Superb.”Industrial and Labor Relations Review
“A fascinating study.”—Michigan Historical Review
“This is the best book ever written about American labor in the era of World War I. McCartin illuminates how workers and their adversaries battled over the meaning of 'industrial democracy' and how the outcome of that contest shaped our labor politics for decades to come. This bold and vigorous narrative is just the kind of synthesis of changing ideas and social forces we need.”—Michael Kazin, author of The Populist Persuasion: An American History
