Abstract

Culture Wars: The Prequel

This article focuses on two books. The books are: "Radical Representations: Politics and Form in U.S. Proletarian Fiction, 1929-1941," by Barbara Foley; and "Industrial Valley," by Ruth McKenney. It is no accident-to revive a phrase that saw hard service in earlier debates over proletarian culture-that "Radical Representations:Politics and form in U.S. Proletarian Fiction, 1929-1941," the most ambitious re-examination to date of 1930's proletarian fiction, was written by someone whose own history has been intimately involved with questions of academic freedom. Taken as a whole, "Industrial Valley" is conformist and experimental, politically correct and gripping, mechanical and compassionate-in short, not susceptible to easy generalizations and certainly not deserving of summary dismissal.