Undoing the Liberal World Order: Progressive Ideals and Political Realities Since World War II

In the decades following World War II, American liberals had a vision for the world. Their ambitions would not stop at the water's edge: progressive internationalism, they believed, could help peoples everywhere achieve democracy, prosperity, and freedom. Chastened in part by the failures of these grand aspirations, in recent years liberals and the Left have retreated from such idealism. Today, as a beleaguered United States confronts a series of crises, does the postwar liberal tradition offer any useful lessons for American engagement with the world? The historian Leon Fink examines key cases of progressive influence on postwar U.S. foreign policy, tracing the tension between liberal aspirations and the political realities that stymie them. From the reconstruction of post-Nazi West Germany to the struggle against apartheid, he shows how American liberals joined global allies in pursuit of an expansive political, social, and economic vision. Even as liberal internationalism brought such successes to the world, it also stumbled against domestic politics or was blind to the contradictions in capitalist development and the power of competing nationalist identities. A diplomatic history that emphasizes the roles of social class, labor movements, race, and grassroots activism, Undoing the Liberal World Order suggests new directions for a progressive American foreign policy.

History

Fink, Leon

Americas

Columbia University Press

In the decades following World War II, American liberals had a vision for the world. Their ambitions would not stop at the water’s edge: progressive internationalism, they believed, could help peoples everywhere achieve democracy, prosperity, and freedom. Chastened in part by the failures of these grand aspirations, in recent years liberals and the Left have retreated from such idealism. Today, as a beleaguered United States confronts a series of crises, does the postwar liberal tradition offer any useful lessons for American engagement with the world?\nThe historian Leon Fink examines key cases of progressive influence on postwar U.S. foreign policy, tracing the tension between liberal aspirations and the political realities that stymie them. From the reconstruction of post-Nazi West Germany to the struggle against apartheid, he shows how American liberals joined global allies in pursuit of an expansive political, social, and economic vision. Even as liberal internationalism brought such successes to the world, it also stumbled against domestic politics or was blind to the contradictions in capitalist development and the power of competing nationalist identities. A diplomatic history that emphasizes the roles of social class, labor movements, race, and grassroots activism, Undoing the Liberal World Order suggests new directions for a progressive American foreign policy.

Focusing on the operation and influence of the Knights of Labor --- the leading labor organization of the nineteenth century --- Workingmen's Democracy explores the dreams, achievements, and failures of a movement that sought to renew the democratic potential of American institutions."The pick of a growing crop of studies on the American working class." -- The Nation"An important work, the best of several recent volumes on the Knights." -- American Historical Review

Workingmen's democracy: The Knights of Labor and American politics (The Working class in American history)

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

University of Illinois Press

Focusing on the operation and influence of the Knights of Labor --- the leading labor organization of the nineteenth century --- Workingmen's Democracy explores the dreams, achievements, and failures of a movement that sought to renew the democratic potential of American institutions. "The pick of a growing crop of studies on the American working class." -- The Nation "An important work, the best of several recent volumes on the Knights." -- American Historical Review

Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (Working Class in American History)

Business & Money

Economics

Upheaval in the Quiet Zone tells the story of one of the liveliest, stormiest organizations on the modern American labor scene.

Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of Hospital Workers' Union, Local 1199 (Working Class in American History)

Literature & Fiction

Greenberg, Brian

Poetry

In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture (Working Class in American History)

excellent condition in the interior of the paperback book; pages are clean and bright; binding is tight; the spine is intact and uncreased; light wear and a small crease on the bottom right corner on the back of the cover; 298 pages; edition 1989; published by University of Illinois Press (J-22)

Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of Hospital Workers' Union, Local 1199

These nine essays by a prominent scholar in American labor history self-consciously evoke the tensions between the worker as historical subject and the historian as outside observer. Encompassing studies of labor culture, strategy, and movement building from the late nineteenth century to the present, In Search of the Working Class also connects the trials of the early labor economists to the conceptual challenges facing today's academic practitioners. "Fink places American labor history in the broader context of American political historiography better than any other historian I can think of." -- James R. Barrett, author of Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago's Packinghouse Workers, 1894-1922  

This new second edition updates the dramatic story of 1199SEIU, an insurgent labor union that eventually established itself as a vital force in the modern labor movement. When SEIU president Andrew Stern laid plans in 2006 for a new national health care workers union that would both reach out to the unorganized and campaign for universal, national health insurance, he turned to 1199 president Dennis Rivera--and the 1199 political model--to lead the effort. With new material that updates the union's history since the 1990s, this book conveys the promise and problems of movement-building in the twenty-first century health care industry.

Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: 1199/SEIU and the Politics of Healthcare Unionism (Working Class in American History)

This text presents a carefully selected group of readings, on topics such as American capitalism and the Great War, that allow students to evaluate primary sources, test the interpretations of distinguished historians, and draw their own conclusions.

Major Problems in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era: Documents and Essays (Major Problems in American History Series)

Wadsworth Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fink, Leon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fink, Leon

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fink, Leon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Undoing the Liberal World Order: Progressive Ideals and Political Realities Since World War II

Undoing the Liberal World Order: Progressive Ideals and Political Realities Since World War II

Workingmen's democracy: The Knights of Labor and American politics (The Working class in American history)

Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (Working Class in American History)

Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of Hospital Workers' Union, Local 1199 (Working Class in American History)

In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture (Working Class in American History)

Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of Hospital Workers' Union, Local 1199

In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture (Working Class in American History)

Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: 1199/SEIU and the Politics of Healthcare Unionism (Working Class in American History)

Major Problems in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era: Documents and Essays (Major Problems in American History Series)