Whose Detroit?

Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City

AvHeather Ann Thompson

Inbunden, Engelska, 2017

665 kr

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Beskrivning

America's urbanites have engaged in many tumultuous struggles for civil and worker rights since the Second World War. In Whose Detroit?, Heather Ann Thompson focuses in detail on the struggles of Motor City residents during the 1960s and early 1970s and finds that conflict continued to plague the inner city and its workplaces even after Great Society liberals committed themselves to improving conditions.Using the contested urban center of Detroit as a model, Thompson assesses the role of such upheaval in shaping the future of America's cities. She argues that the glaring persistence of injustice and inequality led directly to explosions of unrest in this period. Thompson finds that unrest as dramatic as that witnessed during Detroit's infamous riot of 1967 by no means doomed the inner city, nor in any way sealed its fate. The politics of liberalism continued to serve as a catalyst for both polarization and radical new possibilities and Detroit remained a contested, and thus politically vibrant, urban center.Thompson's account of the post-World War II fate of Detroit casts new light on contemporary urban issues, including white flight, police brutality, civic and shop floor rebellion, labor decline, and the dramatic reshaping of the American political order. Throughout, the author tells the stories of real events and individuals, including James Johnson, Jr., who, after years of suffering racial discrimination in Detroit's auto industry, went on trial in 1971 for the shooting deaths of two foremen and another worker at a Chrysler plant.Bringing the labor movement into the context of the literature of Sixties radicalism, Whose Detroit? integrates the history of the 1960s into the broader political history of the postwar period. Urban, labor, political, and African-American history are blended into Thompson's comprehensive portrayal of Detroit's reaction to pressures felt throughout the nation. With deft attention to the historical background and preoccupations of Detroit's residents, Thompson has written a biography of an entire city at a time of crisis.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2017-04-01
Mått:155 x 235 x 28 mm
Vikt:907 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:304
Förlag:Cornell University Press
ISBN:9781501745614

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Mer om författaren

Heather Ann Thompson is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. She is the Pulitzer- and Bancroft-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, The Atlantic, Salon, Dissent, New Labor Forum, and The Huffington Post.

Recensioner i media

Thompson illuminates themes of race, labor, and politics in Detroit's history during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, revealing much about the interplay of forces central to American life.... Thompson presents a vivid portrait of key courtroom battles against racial injustice.... This first-rate contribution to a better understanding of the dynamics shaping US cities captures the flavor and drama of the Detroit struggle.(Choice) Thompson uses Detroit in the 1960s and early 1970s to consider how the battles for civil and workers rights have shaped American cities. There's plenty here for readers eager to think deeply about our hometown's challenges.(Detroit Free Press) Thompson's engrossing work challenges an array of interpretations about postwar urban America, race relations, labor relations, the triumph of Reagan conservatism, and more. Essential for any collection on the history, politics, or society of post-World War II America.(Library Journal) Thompson's study is a triumph of social and political history. She connects in a most engaging style events on the street, the factory floor, and the courtroom, and convincingly shows the political realignments that have remade Detroit.(Labour/Le Travail)

Innehållsförteckning

Prologue to the 2017 Printing Introduction: Reassessing the Fate of Postwar Cities, Politics, and Labor 1. Beyond Racial Polarization: Political Complexity in the City and Labor Movement of the 1950s 2. Optimism and Crisis in the New Liberal Metropolis 3. Driving Desperation on the Auto Shop Floor 4. Citizens, Politicians, and the Escalating War for Detroit's Civic Future 5. Workers, Officials, and the Escalating War for Detroit's Labor Future 6. From Battles on City Streets to Clashes in the Courtroom 7. From Fights for Union Office to Wildcats in the Workplace 8. Urban Realignment and Labor Retrenchment: An End to Detroit's War at Home Conclusion: Civic Transformation and Labor Movement Decline in Postwar Urban America Epilogue