Historian and activist Allen Ruff received his Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s written on the history of the American Left, local history and has published one novel. Schooled by decades of activist experience, his primary work now centers on opposition to U.S. interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere. He currently hosts a public affairs radio program and is part of the staff collective at Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative in Madison, WI.
“We Called Each Other Comrade”: Charles H. Kerr & Company, Radical Publishers
SKU: 9781604864267
Author: Allen Ruff with a Foreword by Paul Buhle
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 9781604864267
Published: 5/11
Format: Paperback, ePub, mobi, PDF
Format: 9 x 6
Page count: 342
Subjects: U.S. History, Politics
Praise
“‘We Called Each Other Comrade’ is a classic work in the history of American media and the American left. Allen Ruff has masterfully told this extraordinary story about a book publisher at the heart of our nation’s most important struggles for social justice. This richly nuanced look at the Charles Kerr Company has stood the test of time and deserves your attention.” —Robert W. McChesney, co-author, The Death and Life of American Journalism
“Arrestingly told and meticulously researched, this fine history of the world’s oldest radical publisher uniquely brings to life the great characters, free speech fights, political struggles, and intellectual ferment of the home-grown revolutionary left in the United States.” —David Roediger, University of Illinois, author of How Race Survived U.S. History
“Allen Ruff has written a valuable study of the Chicago publishing house that gave voice to the left wing of American socialism in the two decades before World War I. Guided by founder Charles Kerr’s belief that “there could be no socialists without socialist books,” the Kerr company used education and agitation in a struggle to transform American institutions and organize a cooperative commonwealth…. This highly readable and well-documented work is a must for labor historians, and would be particularly appropriate for labor history and labor and media classes.” —Labor Studies Journal
“Freelance historian Ruff tells the story of Chicago’s Charles H. Kerr & Co. and its importance as the longest-running socialist publisher in the world. Ruff describes Kerr & Co.’s development and its founder’s philosophical journey from Unitarianism through Populism to socialism and the revolutionary wing of the movement. Along the way he presents a rich view of turn-of-the-century American political history. This seemingly narrow corporate history sketches the development of labor unions, the formation of American socialism, and its factional infighting before World War I. We view the rise of Chicago and its publishing industry and look behind the scenes at seminal publications of American socialism. Ruff also includes biographical snapshots of the great figures of the Progressive era: Eugene V. Debs, Big Bill Haywood, and Clarence Darrow, among others. Recommended for academic and public libraries with comprehensive collections in American history.” —Library Journal
“Occasionally a historian like Allen Ruff is able to discover a hidden diamond, clean off the accumulated dust of the ages and make it shine for all. That is what he did with the Charles Kerr Publishing House, quite one of the most remarkable cultural achievements, produced by organised workers anywhere in the English speaking world.” —Phil Katz, Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers and Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, UK.
Book Events
april, 2024
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Reviews
- Department of Book Reports: “We Called Each Other Comrade”
- We Called Each Other Comrade — a window into American radical publishing history