Books by Frances Fox Piven

Have the poor fared best by participating in conventional electoral politics or by engaging in mass defiance and disruption? The authors of the classic Regulating The Poor assess the successes and failures of these two strategies as they examine, in this provocative study, four protest movements of lower-class groups in 20th century America:-- The mobilization of the unemployed during the Great Depression that gave rise to the Workers'' Alliance of America-- The industrial strikes that resulted in the formation of the CIO-- The Southern Civil Rights Movement-- The movement of welfare recipients led by the National Welfare Rights Organization.

The era of American labor's greatest struggles, vividly reconstructed by one of labor history's greatest historians.

A fascinating, comprehensive study of the American workforce, from the "roaring twenties" through the Great Depression.

Argues that ordinary people exercise real power in American politics mainly at those extraordinary moments when they rise up in anger and hope, defy the rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives, and by doing so, disrupt the workings of the institutions in which they are enmeshed.

"e;Piven has embodied the best of American democracy."e;The Nation Frances Fox Piven reminds us why we must understand the labor, civil-rights, and anti-imperialist struggles of the Depression era if we are going to advance the struggles of the present. Frances Fox Piven is the author of many important books.