The Perils and Promises of Global History: New Ideas on a Usable Past. A Review of Aviva Chomsky's Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2008)

Authors

  • Louis Segal University of California—Berkeley

Keywords:

global history, linked labor, New England, Colombia

Abstract

The central arguments that inform Aviva Chomsky’s Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class are that “labor history is at heart of understanding globalization,” that this process—seeking to maximize profits and degrade labor by cycles of immigration and deindustrialization and out-sourcing—has been playing itself out for at least a hundred years, that the textile industry has been a key bellwether of this process, and that through a complex intertwined study of New England and Colombia new light can be shed on the process of globalization and the making of a global working class.

Author Biography

  • Louis Segal, University of California—Berkeley
    Louis Segal enseña historia latinoamericana en el circuito académico del norte de California. Su trayectoria ha sido larga y sinuosa. Estudió en la Universidad de California en Berkeley en los años 60, pero abandonó los estudios para “nunca” volver. Viajó extensamente y trabajó en varios empleos en lugares como el valle central de California y Cuba. En 1985 volvió a la universidad y recibió su BA en California State University, en Hayward, y luego su maestría y doctorado en la Universidad de California en Davis. Enseñó en Berkeley entre 2002 y 2008 y actualmente divide su tiempo como instructor entre Berkeley, Davis, y Hayward.

Published

2010-09-01

Issue

Section

Reviews: Labor and Political History

How to Cite

The Perils and Promises of Global History: New Ideas on a Usable Past. A Review of Aviva Chomsky’s Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2008). (2010). A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 8(1), 468-478. https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/511