Wobblies of the world

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Elizabeth McKillen

This provocative book is the first to establish the impact of United States foreign policy during the World War I era on the development of the labor movement. Applying the methods of community study, Elizabeth McKillen reconstructs the campaign waged by a Chicago labor coalition against the foreign policy objectives of the American Federation of Labor. McKillen demonstrates that AFL leader Samuel Gompers supported the war effort because he recognized an unprecedented opportunity to secure access for labor to policymaking circles. As she documents the diplomatic activities of the AFL, McKillen chronicles its bitter struggle with the Chicago Federation of Labor, which sought different avenues to power for American workers. While exploring the conditions that stimulated activism in municipal labor councils, McKillen considers how ethnic rivalries, particularly among Irish- and Polish-Americans, helped shape attitudes concerning labor politics and foreign policy. Throughout, she also compares the British shop stewards' movement to Chicago labor's rebellion against AFL diplomatic policy. Delineating the intertwined histories of organized labor, ethnic politics, and diplomacy during a pivotal time, McKillen offers a revealing precedent for questions of labor policy in today's global economy as well.

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Emily D. Johnson

"In the bookshops of present-day St. Petersburg, guidebooks abound. Both modern descriptions of Russia's old imperial capital and lavish new editions of pre-Revolutionary texts sell well, primarily attracting an audience of local residents. Why do Russians read one- and two-hundred-year-old guidebooks to a city they already know well? In How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself, Emily Johnson traces the Russian fascination with local guides to the idea of kraevedenie." "Johnson traces the history of kraevedenie, showing how St. Petersburg-based scholars and institutions have played a central role in the evolution of the discipline. Distinguished from obvious Western equivalents such as cultural geography and the German Heimatkunde by both its dramatic history and unique social significance, kraevedenie has, for close to a hundred years, served as a key forum for expressing concepts of regional and national identity within Russian culture."--Jacket.

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Norbert Dabira

Le général de brigade Norbert Dabira décrit du dedans le second affrontement impitoyable entre cabras,coroyes et ninjas qui déboucha sur la victoire du général Sassou N'guesso. Plus de 40 documents annexés inédits complètent le récit des événements militaro-politiques de ces " 133 jours d'enfer ".

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Brown Meggs

An eighteen-year-old boy from South Dakota travels with the rest of the 12th U.S. Cavalry to join General Pershing in 1916.