Since the publication of Professor Ahmed White's book, The Last Great Strike: Little Steel, the CIO, and the Struggle for Labor Rights in New Deal America (University of California, 2016), it has accumulated high praise.
Historian Randi Storch calls The Last Great Strike "thoughtful, well-written and carefully researched." She says it is a "powerful read, appropriate for the classroom and the general public." An excerpt from Storch’s review is below.
“The five-month strike against thirty Little Steel mills sprawled across seven states. Images of Chicago's policemen shooting into the backs of fleeing protestors on Memorial Day crystalized the callous and violent resistance industrial unionists faced throughout the struggle against such Little Steel industrialists as Thomas Girdler of Republic Steel. Most histories that discuss the event, however, present Little Steel's anti-union forces as a foil to the main story – Little Steel workers' ultimate victory in 1942 and the power of New Deal reforms to strengthen labor's hand. Ahmed White disagrees with this interpretation. Joining a growing group of scholars who question the effectiveness of New Deal reform, White carefully engages the La Follete Civil Liberties Committee hearings, internal CIO debates, court rulings and National Labor Relations Board decisions to debunk dominant narratives that tell a story of CIO, NLRB and New Deal success. White relies on extensive archival evidence to consider the Little Steel strike in the larger historical context of labor law, policy and labor relations. Effectively bridging social, political and legal history, White's clear and compelling narrative uses the Little Steel Strike to assess the New Deal and understand the place of unions and labor rights in the United States.”
White’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of labor and criminal law and on the concept of rule of law. He has been a member of the faculty at the University of Colorado Law School since 2000 and teaches Criminal Law, Labor Law, and Class and Law.