Labor’s Partisans: Essential Writings on the Union Movement from the 1950s to Today

Dissent, a magazine, has a long and storied history dating back to its founding in 1954. Editors Lichtenstein (history, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Labor’s War at Home) and Sonti (urban studies, CUNY Sch. of Labor and Urban Studies) collect a series of writings from across Dissent’s entire publication timeline and make it available in one place for the first time. This book provides readers with a sense of how organized labor has evolved and how writing and thought about the topic has evolved as well. One section to highlight is “What Is To Be Done?,” which primarily features more recently published pieces from the magazine that tackle the current discourse around union renewal experienced in the States today. Another standout section, “The Dissent Tradition, Then and Now: A Roundtable Discussion on the Labor Movement and Democratic Socialism,” features the transcript of a moderated conversation that took place in May 2024.