Puerto Rican Labor History 1898–1934

By placing the island’s organized labor movement in a broad cultural, social and political context, Sanabria ultimately provides a more nuanced history of Puerto Rican labor history, its main leaders and its most important institutions. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Puerto Rican history and labor studies. * Socialism and Democracy *
Sanabria offers a fresh insight on Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor’s influence in the development of the labor movement during the first three decades of American rule over Puerto Rico. His work is detailed, incisive, and nuanced, and more importantly, accessible to a broad public. -- Harry Franqui-Rivera, Bloomfield College
Puerto Rican Labor History 1898-1934: Revolutionary Ideals and Reformist Politics reinvigorates the study of Puerto Rican working-class history by offering a comprehensive analysis of the labor movement’s two most important institutions at the turn of the twentieth century, the Federación Libre de Trabajadores and the Partido Socialista. By carefully tracing their histories, contradictions, and their members’ intellectual production, Carlos Sanabria offers new perspectives that will, without a doubt, inform future debates in the fields of labor and Puerto Rican studies. -- Jorell Meléndez Badillo, University of Connecticut
Carlos Sanabria’s book, Puerto Rican Labor History, 1898-1934, represents a contribution to the debates and interpretations of the history of the labor movement in Puerto Rico. This book places into perspectives and explores labor’s struggles in the broad context of social, economic, and political transformations occurring in Puerto Rico during the period under study. It should be a basic acquisition for academic and research libraries dealing with labor history in Latin America and the Caribbean. -- Amílcar Tirado, University of Puerto Rico