A Celebration of Work: Norman Best, William G. Robbins
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This unusual autobiography, edited by a historian at Oregon State University, chronicles the career of a man employed in blue-collar work for almost half a century, dating from his first full-time job in 1922. It is not the density of detail supplied on Best’s labors in highway construction and the like that lend the book its special flavor; rather, his philosophy of economic democracy, rooted in Jeffersonian principles and Judeo-Christian ethics, gives his voice its unique tone. A social activist, Best involved himself in union organizing and was a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s and ’40s. Yet, as he surveys the American scene today, he is dismayed to find the number of family farms dwindling under economic pressures and unions transformed into servants of multinational megacorporations. Nonetheless, Best urges the U.S. to reform, to become a people-driven, not a profit-hungry society. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Best grew up in the Northwest, exposed to the lore of the Industrial Workers of the World and the Nonpartisan League. His memoir explores the changing nature of work, from the Jeffersonian ideal of the craftsperson to an increasing emphasis on production and a concurrent loss of autonomy. Best believes a short-lived political renaissance took place during the Great Depression, when the New Deal shifted the balance of power away from corporate America and to the people. His own experiences led him to the Communist party, which he felt combined the ethic of the golden rule with Jeffersonian democracy and taught him the fundamental premise that an informed and organized working class is essential. He later broke with the party because he felt its bureaucracy lost touch with the workers themselves. A valuable and informative personal account of 20th-century American labor.
- John R. Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Ut.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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