“The culmination of Stromquist’s lifetime of impressive scholarship on rank-and-file workers and socialist movements, Claiming the City? arrives right on time as we explore the possibilities of transformation at the municipal scale. Astonishingly sweeping in its range of fine-grained case studies, the book teems with comparative insights while it traces transnational connections established by a mobile working class and internationalist commitments.”
—David Roediger teaches American Studies at University of Kansas. His books include The Sinking Middle Class?
“I’m sure that Shelton Stromquist’s monumental book will have a lasting impact. It is an inspiring work by a historian of great stature on a very important, but much neglected, topic; it will certainly resonate throughout discussions of history and socialist politics.”
—Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History
“This magisterial account of socialist and labor activism at the local level sweeps ambitiously across Europe, the US, Australia, and New Zealand. Shelton Stromquist eloquently unearths a global movement of “internationalism from below” that transformed cities and, as well, reshaped national and global. politics. Claiming the City is a magnificent achievement that vividly demonstrates the value of global labor history.”
—Julie Greene, Professor of History, University of Maryland at College Park
“A valuable work of historical recovery.”
—Eric Brandom, Age of Revolutions
“The book is an impressive achievement, and with its 850 pages, a must-have for anyone interested in labour or urban history.”
—Hannas Rolf, Radical Housing Journal
“As Claiming the City impresses upon us, municipal socialism is more than an ethic or fulcrum for organizing—it is a means of securing investment and redefining the public interest. Its revivalists must persuade ordinary people of what can be gained from democratic control of economic life.”
—Justin H. Vassallo, Dissent
“In his panoramic new book, Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism, labor historian Shelton Stromquist offers an invigorating portrait of an era that many socialists have recently rediscovered in hopes of finding a model for radical local politics today.”
—Justin H. Vassallo, Dissent
“Shelton Stromquist has written an ambitious and exciting work in Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism.”
—Mathias Fuelling, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
“Claiming the City is a valuable work of historical recovery.”
—Eric Brandom, Age of Revolutions
“Shelton Stromquist’s book is very rich account of the history of municipal socialism.”
—Hannes Rolf, Radical Housing Journal
“Claiming the City is a towering contribution to the scholarship on global socialism. This volume offers encyclopedic knowledge of municipal socialism, which has never been studied from a global perspective. In the process, it advances several historiographical conversations, innovating them and offering a model for future research.”
—Lorenzo Costaguta, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History
“Stromquist’s masterpiece of comparative labor and working-class history will undoubtedly become a classic in the field and a starting point for another generation of histories of municipal reform.”
—Janine Giordano Drake, New Labor Forum
“Claiming the City remains an excellent addition to global labor history because it elevates the role of the city and locality, moving away from national focused histories in the process … By focusing on the locality of workers’ lives and examining how each city witnesses unique struggles, it delivers a new perspective on the importance of labor and socialist parties in providing immediate improvements to peoples’ lives. It further advances the field through its detailed research that will be used by researchers for decades to better understand the battles that took place in each city and those who sacrificed so much to make these improvements”
—Aloysius Landrigan, H—Socialisms, H-Net Reviews
“Relevant lessons, drawn from the experience of more than 1200 municipal officials elected as candidates of the Socialist Party (SP) during its early 20th century heyday, were pretty much unknown and forgotten. Only recently have activists had invaluable historical guides like Shelton Stromquist’s Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers Fight for Municipal Socialism“
—Steve Early, Social Policy
“This is a vast, expansive, and brilliant book, the result of 20 years’ work by University of Iowa labour historian Shelton Stromquist. Its power lies in its historical span, covering a critical era in working-class political mobilisation from the 1890s to the aftermath of World War I.”
—Janet McCalman, Labour History
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