Exhaustively mining archival, newspaper, and secondary sources as well as over a dozen interviews, Howard has written a solid....study surely destined to be the last word on his subject.Summing Up: RECOMMENDED. Graduate students and faculty.
R.J. Goldstein, Oakland University
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Howard investigates the "Anthracite Reds," who operated in the home ground of the Molly Maguires and the ... Read moreLattimer massacre. He shows how conditions were ripe for members of the Communist Parts there to attempt to organize resistance to the overwhelming power of the mine owners, sustain unemployed miners in the Depression, support labor unions, and lead opposition to local fascist organizations before World War II. He also shows how the Cold War made it nearly impossible for a miner to declare himself a communist and remain in the anthracite.
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Howard carefully tells the story of how the indigenous leaders and members of the anthracite party struggled to build their organization from 1919. Howard's narrative does not support either the traditional view of the party's subservience to the Cominternnor revisionist views of the part as a genuine form of American radicalism. Instead, Howard documents the rather stormy history of party line changes, as well as local issues championed by the largely immigrant workers who led the party in the anthracite region....As such,Forgotten Radicals makes a significant contribution to the literature on local Communist Party history and gives much to historians of the anthracite region, historians of the Communist Party, and labor historians in general.
Samuel W. White, Assistant Professor, Labor Education Program, University of Missouri Show Less