Synopses & Reviews
A wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade,
Stayin Alive is prize-winning historian Jefferson Cowies remarkable account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the 1970s. In this edgy and incisive book—part political intrigue, part labor history, with large doses of American music, film and television lore—Cowie, with an ear for the power and poetry of vernacular speech” (
Cleveland Plain Dealer), reveals Americas fascinating path from rising incomes and optimism of the New Deal to the widening economic inequalities and dampened expectations of the present.
Winner of the 2011 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians for the Best Book on American History
Winner of the 2011 Merle Curti Prize from the Organization of American Historians for the Best Book in American Social History
Winner of the 2011 Labor History Best Book Prize
Winner of the 2011 Best Book Award from the United Association for Labor Education
Review
In near epic proportions, Cowie covers . . . the demise of the mythic American working class. A must read.
Choice
Might be the most groundbreaking and original national history of a working class since
E. P. Thompsons Making of the English Working Class.
New Politics
[C]aptures the contradictory nature of 1970s politics better than almost any other [book] ever written about the period.
Dissent
[A] fun read with cultural insight that makes connections I hadnt, from Saturday Night Fever to Dog Day Afternoon, Bruce Springsteen to Devo.
Salon.com
Review
Will long stand as the finest and most sophisticated portrait of politics and culture in the American 1970s.”
—E.J. Dionne
Gives the best sense of the way that it felt to live through the decade
Cowies book captures the contradictory nature of the 1970s politics better than almost any other ever written about the period.”
—Kim Phillips-Fein, Dissent
One of the best books of 2010.”
—Joan Walsh, Salon
Might be the most groundbreaking and original national history of a working class since E.P. Thompsons Making of the English Working Class.”
—Steven Colatrella, New Politics
Synopsis
Winner of the 2011 Merle Curti award, an epic account that recasts the 1970s as the key turning point in modern U.S. history, from the renowned historian A wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade, Stayin' Alive is prizewinning historian Jefferson Cowie's remarkable account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the 1970s. In this edgy and incisive book--part political intrigue, part labor history, with large doses of American music, film and television lore--Cowie, with "an ear for the power and poetry of vernacular speech" (Cleveland Plain Dealer), reveals America's fascinating path from rising incomes and optimism of the New Deal to the widening economic inequalities and dampened expectations of the present.
Synopsis
Winner of the Society of American Historians 2011 Francis Parkman PrizeA wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade, Stayin Alive is a remarkable account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the 1970s. In this edgy and incisive bookpart political intrigue, part labor history, with large doses of American music, film, and TV lore&mdashCowie, with an ear for the power and poetry of vernacular speech” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), reveals Americas fascinating and little-understood path from the rising incomes and optimism of the New Deal to the widening economic inequalities and dampened expectations of the present.
Hailed by Rick Perlstein in The Nation as one [of] our most commanding interpreters of recent American experience,” prizewinning labor historian Jefferson Cowie takes us from the factory floors of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit to the Washington of Nixon, Ford, and Carter, connecting politics and culture, and showing how the big screen and the jukebox can help us understand how America turned away from the radicalism of the 1960s and toward the patriotic promise of Ronald Reagan.
Published to great acclaim in hardcover, Stayin Alive captures nothing less than the defining characteristics of a new eraa history with profound relevance for our own times.
About the Author
Jefferson Cowie is an associate professor of history at Cornell University. He is the author of Capital Moves: RCAs Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor (The New Press), which received the 2000 Philip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History. He lives in Ithaca, New York.