Synopses & Reviews
Review
"The author...provides a carefully wrought and provocative argument that opposes the central tenets of American 'exceptionalism.'" Harvard Law Review
Review
"...a brilliant tour de force..." Staughton Lynd, The Journal of American History
Review
"Belated Feudalism is a provocative and highly original work of critical legal history on class formation and political development. Its underlying lesson--no labor, no liberalism--simultaneously challenges the restraining myths of America's pristine past and alerts us to the possiblities of a more democratic future." Contemporary Sociology
Review
"Orren provides a useful guide to the application of master-and-servant doctrine to the changing work environment and she raises challenging points about the role of labor in creating the undercarriage of the post-New Deal institutional order. These are significant contributions." Reviews in American History
Review
"Belated Feudalism is a stunning reinterpretation of the American political order as a whole. Labor and law are avenues to a broad vista. Orren reconceptualizes the logic of American political development, the relation of public and private in American politics, and the place of labor history in American political history. On all of these dimensions, one cannot read this book without having one's views shaken up and permanently altered." Jeffrey K. Tulis, The University of Texas at Austin
Review
"Orren's insight about the persistence of feudal relations in the workplace is a stunning way of accounting for the subservience that characterized employers' expectations and workers' drudgery." Wythe Holt, Labor History
Table of Contents
Preface; 1. Introduction: liberalism and labor in developmental perspective; 2. The transition to liberalism and the remnant of American labor; 3. Belated feudalism: the order of the workplace in late-nineteenth-century America; 4. The old order and collective action; 5. Masters, servants, and the new American state; 6. Conclusion: the state of liberalism; Index.