Reading list

Books on the fight for workers' rights

Celebrate International Workers' Day with books on workers' solidarity.

Verso Books30 April 2026

Books on the fight for workers' rights

“Not a penny off the pay, not an hour on the day!”

This was the slogan that galvanised the 1926 General Strike, a moment where workers moved to take control of their workplaces, communities and lives. On 4 May 1926, workers across Britain pursued a chaotic, unplanned, and wildly uneven contest with the British ruling class. One morning, hopefully soon, we may wake up as they did and find that the walls of our own social world are fracturing too.

In celebration of International Workers' Day, we've discounted everything on our website, including books on the histories of revolution and revolt that radically imagine what our futures can hold.

The Future In Our Past - Out now!

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Further Reading

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  • Work

    Work

    by Andrea Komlosy

    Translated by Loren Balhorn and Jacob Watson

    Andrea Komlosy argues in this important intervention that, when we examine it closely, work changes its meanings according to different historical and regional contexts. Globalizing labour history ...
  • Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell)

    Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell)

    by Jane McAlevey and Bob Ostertag

    In 1995, in the first contested election in the history of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney won the presidency of the nation’s largest labor federation, promising renewal and resurgence. Today, less than ...
    Paperback

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  • Rebel Rank and File

    Rebel Rank and File

    Edited by Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner and Cal Winslow

    Often considered irredeemably conservative, the US working class actually has a rich history of revolt. Rebel Rank and File uncovers the hidden story of insurgency from below against employers and ...
    Paperback

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  • Labor and the Course of American Democracy

    Labor and the Course of American Democracy

    by Charles Bergquist

    The American hemisphere is now more tightly interconnected than ever before, with the trend toward greater economic, social and cultural integration apparently certain to continue. In this landmark...
    Paperback

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  • Eugene V. Debs

    Eugene V. Debs

    by Noah Van Sciver

    Contributions by Paul Buhle, Steve Max and Dave Nance

    Eugene Victor Debs led the Socialist Party in the early twentieth-century to federal and state office across the country, helped to pioneer a fighting union politics that organized all workers, and...
    Paperback

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  • The Death and Life of American Labor

    The Death and Life of American Labor

    by Stanley Aronowitz

    Union membership in the United States has fallen below 11 percent, the lowest rate since before the New Deal. Labor activist and scholar of the American labor movement Stanley Aronowitz argues that...
    Paperback

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  • Marxism in the United States

    Marxism in the United States

    by Paul Buhle

    A crown jewel of New Left historiography, this overview of U.S. Marxism was hailed on its first publication for its nuanced storytelling, balance and incredible sweep.Brimming over with archival fi...
    Paperback (2013)

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  • Writing from the Left

    Writing from the Left

    by Alan Wald

    In this wide-ranging new collection the author of the acclaimed The New York Intellectuals surveys the current crisis of the writers and cultural workers radicalized by the 1960s. He argues that th...
    Paperback

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  • Inventing the Future

    Inventing the Future

    by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams

    Neoliberalism isn’t working. Austerity is forcing millions into poverty and many more into precarious work, while the left remains trapped in stagnant political practices that offer no respite.Inve...
    Paperback

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  • Unpaid

    Unpaid

    by Matthew Cole

    Unpaid upends conventional wisdom about how we value work, exposing wage theft as one of capitalism’s enduring open secrets. From unpaid overtime and under-the-table jobs to algorithmic exploitatio...
  • Four Futures

    Four Futures

    by Peter Frase

    “It is easier to imagine the end of the world,” the theorist Fredric Jameson has remarked, “than to imagine the end of capitalism.” Jacobin Editor Peter Frase argues that technological advancements...
  • The Limits to Capital

    The Limits to Capital

    by David Harvey

    Now a classic of Marxian economics, The Limits to Capital provides one of the best theoretical guides to the history and geography of capitalist development. In this edition, Harvey updates his cla...
    Paperback

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  • The "S" Word

    The "S" Word

    by John Nichols

    During the Cold War it became a dirty word in the United States, but “socialism” runs like a red thread through the nation’s history, an integral part of its political consciousness since the found...
  • The Enemy Within

    The Enemy Within

    by Seumas Milne

    Margaret Thatcher branded the leaders of the 1984–85 miners' strike “the enemy within.”In this classic account, Seumas Milne reveals the astonishing lengths to which her government and its intell...
    Paperback

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  • Our Own Time

    Our Own Time

    by Philip S. Foner and David R. Roediger

    Our Own Time retells the story of American labor by focusing on the politics of time and the movements for a shorter working day. It argues that the length of the working day has been the central i...
    Paperback

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