The Future of the Labor Movement in Historical Perspective

The title of this article—”The Future of the Labor Movement in Historical Perspective”—is meant only half in jest. No one understands better than the historian that the future is beyond knowing, that there are no laws of history or cycles that can be plotted out into the future. But that does not mean history is irrelevant. Powerful continuities connect past and present, and to know what they are is to have guideposts in times of trouble and confusion.

No reader has to ...