Announcing the Paperback Edition of:

Death in the Haymarket


A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing that Divided Gilded-Age America

From Anchor Books - Available now for pre-order from Amazon.com

Available in stores March 15, 2007

“No potboiler on the best-seller list can compete with Death in the Haymarket for narrative GRIP. Rich in character, profound in resonance, shot-through with violence, set in the immigrant neighborhoods, meeting halls, and saloons of the capitol of the American 19th century, here is a Chicago of life -- part labor-history, part immigrant history, part courtroom drama. James Green's subject is the stuff of tragic drama -- injustice and betrayal.”

Jack Beatty, Senior Editor, The Atlantic Monthly


A riveting story of the infamous Haymarket bombing that shocked the nation and led to America’s first red scare.

In May of 1886 Americans awoke to the news that a bomb had exploded a Chicago labor rally killing several policemen. Coming in the midst of the largest national strike Americans had ever seen, the bombing, the mass hysteria it created, and the sensational trial and executions that followed, made headlines across the country. National sentiment turned against the burgeoning labor movement, ending a moment of hope for the nation’s working class.

Death in the Haymarket brings these dramatic events to life, recounting the exhilarating rise of a visionary union movement and its downfall in the wake of the Haymarket tragedy. An absorbing and richly detailed narrative history full of fascinating characters, Death in the Haymarket offers a vivid picture of a crucial moment in the history of American capitalism.

Photograph by Randy H. Goodman

James Green is a scholar, writer and teacher of U.S. history. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, raised in small factory town outside of Chicago and educated at Northwestern University.

He received his PhD in history from Yale University in 1972 and five years later joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Boston where currently teaches history.

Green has also held lectureships at Warwick University in England, at the University of Genoa in Italy where he was a Fulbright Senior Fellow and at Harvard University  where he has taught in the Trade Union Program since 1987.