ROAM AGENCY

THREE STRIKES
Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor’s Last Century

Howard Zinn, Dana Frank, and Robin D. G. Kelley

Beacon Press (September 2002)

Paper • ISBN-13: 9780807050132 • US $20.00 • 192 pgs.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Three renowned historians present stirring tales of labor: Howard Zinn tells the grim tale of the Ludlow Massacre, a drama of beleaguered immigrant workers, Mother Jones, and the politics of corporate power in the age of the robber barons. Dana Frank brings to light the little-known story of a successful sit-in conducted by the ‘counter girls’ at the Detroit Woolworth’s during the Great Depression. Robin D. G. Kelley’s story of a movie theater musicians’ strike in New York asks what defines work in times of changing technology.

PRAISE:

“Three Strikes brings to life the heroic men and women who put their jobs, bodies, and lives on the line to win a better life for all working Americans. Zinn, Frank, and Kelley show us that while the country and the union movement have changed greatly in the last hundred years, our struggle to close the divide between rich and poor remains the same.”

John Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO

“Provocative analysis of still relevant issues, as the passionate, sometimes violent demonstrations at international meetings of the global economy demonstrate.”

Mary Carroll, Booklist

“Highly readable, well-researched narratives of dramatic action”

Leon Fink, Chicago Tribune

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) was a historian, playwright, and activist. He wrote the classic A People’s History of the United States, “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those … whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories” (Library Journal). The book, which has sold more than 2.6 million copies and been translated into 23 foreign editions, has become a cultural touchstone, encouraging interest in “people’s histories” in universities and activist meetings alike. In 2009, History aired The People Speak, an acclaimed documentary co-directed by Zinn, based on A People’s History and a companion volume, Voices of a People’s History of the United States. As Noam Chomsky wrote, “Howard Zinn’s work literally changed the conscience of a generation.”

Zinn grew up in a working-class, immigrant household in Brooklyn. At eighteen, he became a shipyard worker and flew bomber missions over Europe during World War II, experiences which helped to shape his opposition to war and his interest in the lives of working people. After attending college under the GI Bill and earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, he taught at Spelman College, a historically African American women’s college, where he became active in the civil rights movement. After being fired by Spelman for his support for student protesters, Zinn became a professor of Political Science at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement in 1988. He wrote over forty books.

OTHER TITLES BY THIS AUTHOR:

A People’s History of the United States: 1492–Present

A People’s History of the United States: Abridged Teaching Edition (with Kathy Emery and Ellen Reeves)

A People’s History of the United States: The Wall Charts (with George Kirschner)

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies of Law and Order

Emma

Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian

Howard Zinn On Democratic Education (with Donaldo Macedo)

Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963–2009 (ed. Anthony Arnove)

Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of the “People’s Historian”  (ed. Timothy Patrick McCarthy)

Justice in Everyday Life: The Way It Really Works

LaGuardia in Congress

Marx in Soho: A Play on History

New Deal Thought

Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics (with David Barsamian)

Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice

Postwar America: 1945–1971

SNCC: The New Abolitionists

The Bomb: Essays

The Historic Unfulfilled Promise

The People Speak: American Voices, Some Famous, Some Little Known

The Politics of History

The Southern Mystique

The Twentieth Century: A People’s History

Three Plays – The Political Theater of Howard Zinn: Emma / Marx in Soho / The Daughter of Venus

Uncommon Sense: From the Writings of Howard Zinn (eds. Dean Birkenkamp and Wanda Rhudy)

Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal

You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

RIGHTS INFORMATION:

For all languages and territories, please contact Taryn Fagerness at Taryn Fagerness Agency.

See here for a list of Taryn Fagerness’s foreign subagents.