Although unions are by no means entirely gone or lacking in lobbying power, their membership in traditional industries is on the decline and their influence continues to diminish. Only a generation ago, large unions such as the United Mine Workers of America held greater political and economic capital and inspired millions beyond their immediate ranks. In this book, Christian Wright explores the complex history of the UMWA and coal mining in the West over a fifty-year period of the twentieth century, concentrating on the coal miners of Carbon and Emery counties in Utah. Wright emphasizes their experience during the 1970s, which saw the rise and passing of American workers' most successful postwar effort to internally reform a major labor organization: the Miners for Democracy movement. As Wright details how and why Miners for Democracy and nonunion mining raced to control coal's future, he also touches on the UMWA's regional origins during and immediately after the New Deal, when cracks in union efficacy and benefit programs began to appear. Using sophisticated demography, Wright not only details how miners' racial, gender, and generational identities shaped their changing relationships to mining and organized labor, he also illustrates the place of nonunion miners, antiunion employers, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, and women in transforming "Carbon County, USA." Drawing on a variety of primary sources, Wright provides evidence for organized labor's continuing significance and value while effectively illuminating its mounting frustrations during a relatively recent chapter in the history of Utah and the United States.

"Whither the union movement? is a question of old enough relevance in the U.S. to now seem almost anachronistic. Although unions are by no means entirely gone or lacking in political power, they and their potency are certainly diminished. With growing concerns about the direction of national politics, increasing income and power inequities, and signs of a receding middle class and increasing social division into haves and have nots, one can hear murmurs of union revival, but polls continue to show that many Americans distrust unions or consider them irrelevant to a modern service economy. Christian Wright digests what happened to one important American union, the United Mine Workers of America, over a fifty-year period, with particular focus on the coal miners of Carbon and Emery counties in Utah. Derived from his much more limited in scope but award-winning master's thesis at Northern Arizona University, this book manuscript places that story in a broader context of changes in the union movement and the nation. It draws on a variety of primary sources, including original research in the UMWA archives at Penn State and multiple oral history collections"--Provided by publisher.

At nearly twenty tons per person, American carbon dioxide emissions are among the highest in the world. Not every American fits this statistic, however. Across the country there are urban neighborhoods, suburbs, rural areas, and commercial institutions that have drastically lower carbon footprints. These exceptional places, as it turns out, are neither "poor" nor technologically advanced. Their low emissions are due to culture. In The Five-Ton Life, Susan Subak uses previously untapped sources to discover and explore various low-carbon locations. In Washington DC, Chicago suburbs, lower Manhattan, and Amish settlements in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, she examines the built and social environment to discern the characteristics that contribute to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. The most decisive factors that decrease energy use are a commitment to small interiors and social cohesion, although each example exhibits its own dynamics and offers its own lessons for the rest of the country. Bringing a fresh approach to the quandary of American household consumption, Subak's groundbreaking research provides many pathways toward a future that is inspiring and rooted in America's own traditions.