Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality Paperback - 2002

"Few books fundamentally reshape intellectual and political debates. This one deserves and promises to do so. No scholar since W.E.B. Du Bois has brought to the study of race and labor in the United States such broad sweep, human detail, and conceptual sophistication. None has given us an account which so aptly combines balanced judgments with a tone which is at once tragic and sympathetic."--David Roediger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Divided We Stand skillfully examines the complex and often contradictory history of the American labor movement through the shifting contexts of racial and class hierarchies. Superbly crafted and clearly argued, Divided We Stand explains how and why race was so central to the making of the white American working class. In this impressive study, Bruce Nelson shows how the new labor history should be written."--Manning Marable, Columbia University

"Divided We Stand is our twenty-first-century 'Making of the American Working Class.' Combining the passion and insight of E. P. Thompson and W.E.B. DuBois, Bruce Nelson tells the story of class and racial formation on the docks and steel mills and explains why solidarity can never be built on mere 'stomach equality.' While presenting an irrefutable case for white racism as American labor's Achille's heel, Nelson never accepts the outcome as a fait accompli. On the contrary, you will discover challenges to white supremacy, paths not taken, and possibilities not yet realized that can point the way to the unmaking of American racism and the remaking of a revitalized labor movement built on racial justice."--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class

"In a series of important articles over the past few years, Bruce Nelson has established himself as one of the foremost historians writing on the explosive issue of race and labor in the twentieth century. Divided We Stand is therefore a much-anticipated book. It will attract a good deal of attention, and deservedly so. It is an outstanding work of history."--Kevin Boyle, University of Massachusetts