Which Side Are You On?

Trying to Be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back

Thomas Geoghegan

paperback

$16.95 / £10.95

The comic, poignant, one-of-a-kind book that “reads like an enthralling novel” (Studs Terkel)
So skillfully written, so witty—and so scathing—that it seems bound to grip even those who find the labor movement boring.
—BUSINESS WEEK
When it first appeared in hardcover, Which Side Are You On? received widespread critical accolades, and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. In this new paperback edition, Thomas Geoghegan has updated his eloquent plea for the relevance of organized labor in America with an afterword covering the labor movement through the 1990s.

A funny, sharp, unsentimental career memoir, Which Side Are You On? pairs a compelling history of the rise and near-fall of labor in the United States with an idealist’s disgruntled exercise in self-evaluation. Writing with the honesty of an embattled veteran still hoping for the best, Geoghegan offers an entertaining, accessible, and literary introduction to the labor movement, as well as an indispensable touchstone for anyone whose hopes have run up against the unaccommodating facts on the ground. Wry and inspiring, Which Side Are You On? is the ideal book for anyone who has ever woken up and realized, “You must change your life.”


Thomas Geoghegan’s essays and commentary have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Nation, the New Republic, the New York Times, Slate, and the Washington Post, among other publications. His other books are The Secret Lives of Citizens and, most recently, In America’s Court (The New Press). Geoghegan is a practicing attorney in Chicago.

Spring 2004
paperback
5 1/2 x 8 1/4, 368 pages
978-1-56584-886-3

For overseas orders, please contact your local representative from our
Sales & Distribution page.