Best books to learn about US labor history and enclosure in England?

[Witan]

I have two questions:

1.) Does anyone on here have any suggestions of books that deal with US labor history, especially in the era after the Civil War and until the New Deal/WWII? I'm looking to learn more about the absolute nadir of the working class during this period, such as the violence and massacres perpetrated against workers, company towns, anarchist violence, all that good stuff).

2.) Does anyone know of any good books to learn about the history and process of enclosure in England and its political, economic, and class implications?

I'm looking for books that will give me a really solid, in-depth understanding of those two topics, because I feel like thus far I really only have a superficial understanding.

Thanks in advance.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I do not know how many of your bases it will cover but Phillip Dray's "There is power in a Union" is a good read from what I have heard (even if it is hostile to Anarchists).

[subcp]

Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America, by Louis Adamic

Labor's Untold Story

The First 100 Years of the Industrial Worker's of the World

Dynamite is an incredible book that starts with the early years of the US, but focuses on the post-civil war period, starting with the Molly Maguire's in Pennsylvania (dissident Irish miners), the Knights of Labor, early AF of L, IWW, all about violent class struggle in the old days.

Labor's Untold Story was written by Stalinists in the United Electrical Worker's union, so has a pro-CPUSA angle, but is quite good nonetheless. Same with the IWW book, it is pro-syndicalist anti-Communist. Taken together I think they paint an excellent picture of the worker's movement and struggles of that period. Dynamite is the book for you if the history of class violence and class war in the US is what you're after. Very engaging book, can't recommend it enough.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I have two questions:

1.) Does anyone on here have any suggestions of books that deal with US labor history, especially in the era after the Civil War and until the New Deal/WWII? I'm looking to learn more about the absolute nadir of the working class during this period, such as the violence and massacres perpetrated against workers, company towns, anarchist violence, all that good stuff).Check out "Labor Wars" by Sidney Lens, it's pretty much exactly what you were asking about.

Here's the Amazon summary:



The rise of the American labor movement was characterized by bloody and revolutionary battles. From the first famous martyrs, the Molly Maguires in the Pennsylvania coal fields in the nineteenth century, to the crucial workers’ victory of the 1930s in the sit-down strikes against General Motors, it has a history of pitched battles that frequently erupted into open warfare.
This is also the story of the factional wars within the American labor movement itself and of the great leaders it generated: Eugene Debs, Samuel Gompers, William Z. Foster, Bill Haywood, John L. Lewis, Walter Reuther, and many more—some of them Sidney Lens’ personal friends.
There have been no revolutions in the United States since the first one in 1776. The closest America has come to revolution has been the Labor Wars, each one of which has been, in a sense, a revolution-in-microcosm. The strikers in these industrial fl are-ups confronted not only the power of their employers but, ultimately, that of the State . . . and in the process there was always the possibility of a widening and escalating conflict bordering on insurrection.
Sidney Lens (1912–1986) was the author of many books about labor and radical movements in the United States, including The Forging of the American Empire (republished in 2003 by Haymarket Books and Pluto Press). He was a candidate for the Senate for the Citizens Party and an editor at The Progressive.