Working Class History26 Nov 2025

E113: [TEASER] Radical Reads – Forces of Labour

This is a teaser preview of one of our Radical Reads episodes, made exclusively for our supporters on patreon. You can listen to the full 67-minute episode without ads and support our work at https://www.patreon.com/posts/e113-radical-of-143322722

In this episode, we discuss Beverly Silver's pioneering work, Forces of Labour: Workers' Movements and Globalisation Since 1870, a book which was hugely influential on many of us at Working Class History. The book is epic in its breadth (looking at labour unrest around the world and across a long period of time), but also firmly committed to viewing class struggle from the bottom up.

But most important about the book is how deeply materialist and methodical it is in how it outlines the concrete conditions that gave space for working-class struggle, and how those struggles forced capital to think of new strategies in order to deal with it. Moreover, in doing so, her book also helps us to think and to strategise about working-class organising today.

Listen to the full episode here:

E113: Radical Reads – Forces of Labour

More information

Buy Forces of Labour from an independent bookshop (or read it online here)
Check out our collection of books about labour movement history in our online shop
See the webpage for this episode at https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e113-radical-reads-forces-of-labour/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands.
Episode graphic consists of two photos: textile strikers in Paterson, in the US, 1913, courtesy National Parks Gallery, and textile strikers in Egypt, 2007, courtesy Hossam el-Hamalawy https://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy
Edited by Jesse French
Our theme tune is Montaigne’s version of the classic labour movement anthem, ‘Bread and Roses’, performed by Montaigne and Nick Harriott, and mixed by Wave Racer. Download the song here, with all proceeds going to Medical Aid for Palestinians. More from Montaigne: website, Instagram, YouTube

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