MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Politically corrupt and morally bankrupt
HELEN MERCER welcomes an account of how US labour leadership collaborated with the state and betrayed their membership
FAUSTIAN PACT: AFL-CIO President George Meany, left, and US President Richard Nixon at the signing of Executive Order 11491- regulating labour-management relations in the Federal service, October 1969
[Robert L Knudsen/CC] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Blue Collar Empire: the untold story of US labour’s global anti-communist crusade
Jeff Schuhrke
Verso, £25
JEFF SCHUHRKE’s book is a history of the collaboration between trade union leaders and the US state through the Cold War up until the 2000s.
It provides a detailed account of the dealings of key figures in the leadership of the American Federation of Labour (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO) with the US political establishment and the CIA, earning the name “AFL-CIA.”
Schuhrke exposes the labyrinth of personal contacts, committees, and associations through which the US government channelled funds and shaped labour organisations across the world.
More from this author
For Britain, direct military aid is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the spiralling energy crisis that has fueled inflation, driven millions into fuel poverty and inflated corporate profits, reveals HELEN MERCER
A look at the writing of war correspondent James Aldridge 40 years ago reminds us of the eastern perspective when a second front was finally opened on D-Day, 1944, says HELEN MERCER
HELEN MERCER casts an experienced eye over an ambitious exhibition that nevertheless contains painful gaps
HELEN MERCER is disappointed by a depiction of Englands ‘coastal commons’ that lacks compassion and fails to illuminate the root causes of their decay
