I am tremendously honored by Lane Windham’s, Bill Fletcher’s, Suleiman Osman’s and Michael Kazin’s generous, thoughtful responses to my book, as well as by Joseph McCartin’s introduction to this forum. These are five intellectuals and scholars from whom I have learned much, and whose scholarship and activism alike has been a model for me. I deeply appreciate the time they took to think about Fear City, and I am grateful to the Kalmanowitz Initiative, Labor, Joseph McCartin, and Leon Fink for bringing us together.
I am especially pleased that the editors of the journal thought Fear City might have something distinctive to offer labor historians. One of my long-standing interests has been finding ways to write about the history of working-class people and working-class organizations in a way that captures their agency alongside the real constraints and differences of power under which they must operate. In Fear City...
