Death in the Haymarket "explains through the story of one dramatic nineteenth century incident the roots of many of the contemporary union movement’s strengths and weaknesses. Green's research methods are those of a detective, his writing style that of a novelist, and his product is about the most fateful labor rally in American history."
- John Nichols, Washington Editor, The Nation, listing his three favor books of 2006 in The Progressive, December 2006.
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"If you want to know about the Haymarket affair, there's a dazzling array of sources to choose from. But if you must choose just one, read James Green's Death in the Haymarket. It tells the tale with extraordinary grace. Its simplicity of expression carries an understated dramatic charge that stays with you long after finishing. Its collection of newspaper illustrations, cartoons and photographs heightens the tactile evocation of an age that now seems so remote. Moreover, Green deftly uses the Haymarket story to peer deep inside the fears and hopes of a nation living on the knife-edge of social catastrophe."
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Steve Fraser, The Nation, April 3, 2006 Click here to read the full review
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"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. Green renews that horror and shame for our time. ‘It takes a mighty theme to pull a mighty book, ‘ Herman Melville wrote, in what could be a one-line review of Death in the Haymarket."
- Jack Beatty, Senior Editor, The Atlantic Monthly, February 20, 2006
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"For the generation that came of age during the Civil War, ideals and violence were closely entangled. In fact, the war was a point of reference for almost every aspect of the [Haymarket] anarchists’ case, according to Death in the Haymarket, a fast-paced new account by James Green, a labor historian."
- Caleb Crain, featured article in The New Yorker, March 13, 2006
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"James Green has brought about as much clarity and closure to the realities and iconic significance of the Haymarket Affair as we can ever hope to get. His careful scholarship is evidenced by his exhaustive citation of primary and secondary sources…. . But the true distinction of his work is the result of Green’s talents as a writer. He has reconstructed the context of the events of the Haymarket tragedy with the fine hand of a novelist. The book is rich in plot development and thick characterizations, and its interpretation and drama leave the reader both informed and drained. "
- Charles Zappia, San Diego Union-Tribune, April 2, 2006
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"There have been poems about Haymarket…, and novels…, and chapters in books on the labor violence that is strangely omitted from our high school history textbooks—but nothing until now as meticulous as Green’s account, nor as saddening. The hysteria of 1886 dealt a devastating blow not only to labor solidarity but to the whole library of alternative notions about third parties, municipal ownership, and an economy that doesn’t punish those who fail to prosper."
- John Leonard, New Books, Harpers’, March 2006
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"Green’s dramatic narrative tells a powerful story about injustice, passion, prejudice, and fanaticism. It also makes a convincing case for the importance of Haymarket as a pivotal event that laid bare the competing visions of American society that animated conflicts over power and politics in 19th Century America that deserves to be remembered and debated."
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Eric Arnesen, Chicago Sunday Tribune cover review, April 2, 2006
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"[T]here’s more than one reason U-Mass Boston professor James Green’s Death in the Haymarket has caught on. Green is being lauded for having written a stunning portrait of America in the Gilded Age…and a bona fide page turner to boot."
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The Boston Phoenix March 30, 2006
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"We can’t understand late 19th century Chicago without creating its context. Happily, in the Death in the Haymarket, the historian James Green skillfully shows us time and place without padding. His sound, clean-limbed prose is a further blessing, yielding a good fast-paced read driven by fascinating characters." "Mr. Green’s exploration of revolutionaries and their world—their newspapers, social clubs, festivals and fraternal organizations—humanizes men and women who, in their lifetimes, were constantly dehumanized by an astonishingly biased press. This book enriches our understanding of a road not taken…."
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William Byrk, New York Sun, March 24, 2006 |
