Beschreibung:

157 S., Originalleinen mit Schutzumschlag.

Bemerkung:

Umschl. gering berieben. - SOME NOTES ON SUBCULTURES - WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE LABOR MOVEMENT? - An AFL-CIO Primer A Short Guide to Unionland - AMERICA'S CATHOLICS - EVERYBODY'S MAFIA. - Three controversial American "institutions"? Labor, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Mafia?are incisively examined in this brilliant collection by the distinguished novelist, essayist, and critic, Wilfrid Sheed. While the public is well acquainted with the identity of these groups, their inner dynamics are not so well known. In a probing introductory essay, some previously unobserved group characteristics are analyzed and compared. In the longest of these essays, "What Ever Happened to the Labor Movement?" Sheed mixes personal interviews with leading Labor figures with a concise retrospective of the movement's history and comes up with a thoughtful and provocative analysis of the condition of Labor today. Sheed finds several distinct similarities in the structure and character of these "three mobs." The prevailing ethos of each is posited upon a value system formed during a pretechnocratic, immigrant-oriented age; similarly, each is still, in one way or another, guided by chiefs whose own personal values reflect the obsolete realities of this earlier period. As institutions, each resists change and may even be actively hostile to it. In addition, the independent and monolithic structure of each makes it practically impervious to outside pressure to reform. The result?yet another similarity?is that each is in danger of succumbing to "dry rot," that peculiar and often fatal infirmity that afflicts organisms (biological or social) whose inner workings are not properly invigorated by fresh sources of energy. Sheed's cool, analytical eye ranges back and forth over the unique identifying marks of each group. He wryly locates and separates the official image each espouses to the public from the pragmatic realities actually governing its behavior. With a fine and exact eye for detail, he exposes the attitudes and mentalities responsible for the perpetuation of these "venerable," if less than viable, institutions in the face of the dynamic changes of the 1970s. ISBN 0836205863