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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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FIGHT LIKE HELL

Kim Kelly

The Untold History of American Labor

This is an inclusive, character-driven, and deeply researched history of the American labor movement from journalist Kim Kelly.
Freed Black women organizing for protection in the Reconstruction-era South. Jewish immigrant garment workers braving deadly conditions for a sliver of independence. Asian American fieldworkers rejecting government-sanctioned indentured servitude across the Pacific. Incarcerated workers advocating for basic human rights and fair wages. The queer Black labor leader who helped orchestrate America's civil rights movement. These are only some of the working-class heroes who propelled American labor's relentless push for fairness and equal protection under the law.

The names and faces of countless silenced, misrepresented, or forgotten leaders have been erased by time as a privileged few decide which stories get cut from the final copy: those of women, people of color, LGBTQIA people, disabled people, sex workers, prisoners, and the poor. In this definitive and assiduously researched work of journalism, Teen Vogue columnists and independent labor reporter Kim Kelly excavates that untold history and shows how the rights the American worker has today - the forty-hour workweek, workplace-safety standards, restrictions on child labor, protection from harassment and discrimination on the job - were earned with literal blood, sweat, and tears.

Fight Like Hell comes at a time of economic reckoning in America. From Amazon's warehouses to Starbucks cafes, Appalachian coal mines to the sex workers of Portland's Stripper Strike, interest in organized labor is at a fever pitch not seen since the early 1960s. Inspirational, intersectional, and full of crucial lessons from the past, Fight Like Hell shows what is possible when the working class demands the dignity it has always deserved.

Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist and organizer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her work on labor, class, politics, and culture has appeared in the New Republic, the Washington Post, the Baffler, and Esquire, among other publications.
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Published 2022-04-26 by Atria / One Signal

Comments

History at its finest and fiercest - providing both a genealogy for contemporary labor struggles and a new pantheon of icons for today's activists. Deeply researched and powerfully written, Kim Kelly's bold new book will change the way you see work, workers, and our collective fight for a fairer future.

Fight Like Hell is the most important book on labor published in a generation. It weaves together this radical history seamlessly, bringing it to a crescendo with our current crisis and the people fighting for a better future. Kim Kelly is the best labor reporter there is, and this is essential reading for anyone who believes that workers should control their fate.