Stayin' Alive

By Jefferson R. Cowie,

Book cover of Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class

Book description

Jefferson Cowie's edgy and incisive book makes new sense of the 1970s as a crucial and poorly understood transition from New Deal America, with its large, optimistic middle class, to the widening economic inequalities, poverty and dampened expectations of the 1980s and into the present. Cowie also connects politics to…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Stayin' Alive as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I chose this book for two reasons. First, Cowie masterfully documents the hugely significant political and social shift that took place in the 1970s, as America transitioned from the liberalism of the New Deal era to the conservatism of the Reagan revolution. And second, he assumes that culture is just as important as economics in the constructions of and understandings of social class.  Cowie engages the reader in a fascinating look at popular culture to reveal the ways in which a coherent white, working-class male identity fell apart, a process that contributed to the overall decline in organized labor’s power…

Want books like Stayin' Alive?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Stayin' Alive.

Browse books like Stayin' Alive

Book cover of Race Rebels : Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class
Book cover of Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940
Book cover of Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,457

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the economy, the working class, and the New Deal?

The Economy 183 books
The Working Class 111 books
The New Deal 34 books