Thomas J. Keil's achievement in On strike! Capital Cities and the Wilkes-Barre newspaper unions is considerable. The book is an account of a long-running strike in which the unions, due to the local tradition of fierce unionism, were able to muster sufficient grassroots support to enable them to produce a rival newspaper which was still in operation (and perhaps even beating out the first paper) ten years after the strike was called. Keil's book analyzes the strike with great objectivity and provides an illuminating look at what union solidarity can accomplish. But Keil does not make a case either for the unions or for Capital Cities, the company that bought the paper. He maintains an even tone throughout and, without any of the heroics often associated with writing about labor struggles, keeps the reader engrossed. His dispassionate but involved writing is a model of organization and logical presentation of a complicated situation. He succeeds, therefore, in getting the reader to think carefully about the nature of communities and the force of the common interests that bind them together.
Keil also leaves the reader with disturbing questions about which directions communities ought to pursue in their own best interests. The promise of attracting investment and aiding the economically depressed Wilkes-Barre area was held out by Capital Cities, a large multimedia conglomerate. But this promise came with the price of assuming control over their business, including control over workers long-used to directing their own destiny with the complacent former owners. The unions defended the rights that they had gained by following the model of solidarity that had achieved so much for local coal miners over the course of a century.
Yet the coal mining in the area disappeared because the mine owners wanted to exploit areas where non-union workers could not demand too much compensation or try to ensure their own safety. The over...