About the Author

James Green is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He grew up outside of Chicago and now lives with his family in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Reviews

“Definitive. . . . Green’s dramatic narrative tells a powerful story about injustice, passion, prejudice and fanaticism.” —The Chicago Tribune“Though a number of prominent historians have written about the Haymarket Affair, no one has told the story more thoroughly, incisively and elegantly than Green. . . . He has reconstructed both the context and the events of the Haymarket tragedy with the fine hand of a novelist. The book is rich in plot development and thick characterization, and its interpretations and drama leave the reader both informed and drained.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune“Absorbing. . . .Green . . .brings this tale to vivid life [and] does a wonderful job of delineating the cross currents of labor, capital, politics, and terrorism. . . fascinating and deeply American.”—The Boston Globe“It tells the tale with extraordinary grace. Its simplicity of expression carries an understated dramatic charge that stays with you long after finishing.”—The Nation

"Definitive. . . . Green's dramatic narrative tells a powerful story about injustice, passion, prejudice and fanaticism." -The Chicago Tribune"Though a number of prominent historians have written about the Haymarket Affair, no one has told the story more thoroughly, incisively and elegantly than Green. . . . He has reconstructed both the context and the events of the Haymarket tragedy with the fine hand of a novelist. The book is rich in plot development and thick characterization, and its interpretations and drama leave the reader both informed and drained."-The San Diego Union-Tribune"Absorbing. . . .Green . . .brings this tale to vivid life [and] does a wonderful job of delineating the cross currents of labor, capital, politics, and terrorism. . . fascinating and deeply American."-The Boston Globe"It tells the tale with extraordinary grace. Its simplicity of expression carries an understated dramatic charge that stays with you long after finishing."-The Nation

Green (history, Univ. of Massachusetts; Taking History to Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements) writes of the post-Civil War labor agitation in Chicago that culminated in the May 1886 Haymarket Square riot, when an incendiary device tossed by a still-unidentified individual caused police to open fire and led to the death of several people, including eight policemen. The bombing fueled criticism of the dissenting press by the powers that be in a class-divided polity and produced a rallying cry for the labor movement, which was seeking, among other things, an eight-hour workday. Eight mostly foreign-born anarchists were convicted of the crime, because of their speeches and writings. Four of them were hanged, one's sentence was commuted, and three were famously pardoned by Gov. John Peter Altgeld because of lack of evidence. Green tells readers little that is new, instead mining printed sources and offering the accepted and only logical interpretation of the conspiracy-driven trial as a miscarriage of justice. He states that "the memory of the Haymarket anarchists [has] endured" as a tale about labor folk heroes, so he does not bring these figures to life. Recommended for labor history collections that would benefit from a recent monograph on this seminal event and for those seeking to expand their holdings in Chicago studies.-Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.