Fraser's title hints at a tall order, but his book is not an attempted overview of the capitalism and class conflict in American history. Instead, it is a series of eleven essays, recast from earlier incarnations, addressing capitalism and class conflict at particular points in American history. These short, very readable pieces run to only 253 pages of text with a short index, and sparse footnotes.
Common thematic concerns lend a coherence to this compendium frequently absent in similar volumes. The first five chapters explore the rise and nature of finance capital and the establishment of some basic perspective for its management of the workforce. The next three mark the evolution of capitalism through the twentieth century and popular responses, covering the Gilded Age, the Depression, and acquiescence to capitalistic inequalities. The last three chapters cover the “populist plutocracy,” how acquiescence gave rise to new language, and new means of...
