Perhaps more than anything, Russell’s history of the Teamsters under Hoffa illustrates the vibrancy of the labor...
An unexpectedly enthralling academic account of Jimmy Hoffa’s tactics and aspirations, from Barnard College historian Russell.
Russell’s contention here is that Hoffa’s Teamsters—at two million strong the largest union in American history when Hoffa disappeared in 1975 (a case still open at the FBI)—was a strictly economic mission without ideological subtleties, a union on the prowl for material improvements over social transformation. And to a large extent he succeeds by demonstrating that the Teamster’s power base—nonintellectual, native-born, craft-hierarchical WASP truckers—were devoid of any radical tradition, making them wary of political struggles and manipulable by state agencies seeking to depoliticize union activity. Helping to shape Hoffa’s approach were the surrounding social forces, from the rough terrain of an unregulated, amoral economy of Depression-era Detroit to the crusade against the Teamster boss led by Bobby Kennedy, as Christian moralist, and Walter Reuther, as corporatist ideologue. Russell understands that Hoffa was distrustful of all forces outside the Brotherhood—from the State to other unions—not out of paranoia, but by realizing they were as self-serving as he was in looking out for his rank and file; as such, he knew they could likely be bought or compelled to do business, usually at the end of a blackjack or from a conveniently placed stick of dynamite: “punish your enemies, buy your friends.” His accessibility to members and his ability to deliver on contracts made him a workingman’s hero; when it came to wages, hours, and working conditions, the Teamsters far outstripped their union competition. But the arrangements Hoffa entered into—organized-crime contacts, crooked pols, financial shenanigans—were a far cry from the political aspirations that fired the notion of One Big Union.
Perhaps more than anything, Russell’s history of the Teamsters under Hoffa illustrates the vibrancy of the labor movement—for better or worse—during the middle 50 years of the 20th century. (8 pages of photographs, not seen)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-41157-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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