Doug asks:
I can't say I entirely get the point of the review. What do the two of you like about it?
I reply:
Well, I've only read small portions of the book -- and I also heard Cowie interviewed on your show -- so I suppose I can't credibly say whether or not the review is a fair critique. But to the degree the reviewer has bones to pick with Cowie's book, it's because a) Cowie analyzes the w-c-in-itself too much through the lens of pop culture representations and b) Cowie's narrative abruptly drops off at the end of the 1970's, as if the w-c was totally vaporized by the beginnings of capital's and the capitalist state's counter-offensive. As the reviewer notes, even as organized labor was losing ground and losing ground badly, shifts in the composition and politics of organized labor in the 1980's and (especially) the 1990's owed quite a bit to the insurgency within organized labor of the 1970's.
Really though, the point of my post was to thank Michael for drawing our attention to the review, which would have bypassed me otherwise...