MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Politically corrupt and morally bankrupt
HELEN MERCER welcomes an account of how US labour leadership collaborated with the state and betrayed their membership
FAUSTIAN PACT: AFL-CIO President George Meany, left, and US President Richard Nixon at the signing of Executive Order 11491- regulating labour-management relations in the Federal service, October 1969
[Robert L Knudsen/CC]
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
Blue Collar Empire: the untold story of US labour’s global anti-communist crusade
Jeff Schuhrke
Verso, £25
JEFF SCHUHRKE’s book is a history of the collaboration between trade union leaders and the US state through the Cold War up until the 2000s.
It provides a detailed account of the dealings of key figures in the leadership of the American Federation of Labour (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO) with the US political establishment and the CIA, earning the name “AFL-CIA.”
Schuhrke exposes the labyrinth of personal contacts, committees, and associations through which the US government channelled funds and shaped labour organisations across the world.
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In part II of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY explores how witch-hunting drives took hold in the Civil Service as the cold war emerged in the wake of WWII
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