A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis

Happy Juneteenth tomorrow, USA! A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis is the fifth nonfiction book I've read in 2026 putting me squarely at the halfway point of my overall 10 nonfiction goal. This blog post is slightly delayed - I read and finished this back in May, but was drowning in end-of-the-school-year shenanigans. I’ve read a whole other book between then and now. First off, the title is a bit of a misnomer as not all of these are strikes. All of them have strikes, but it's more an overview of different phases of the American labor movement. I guess 10 Labor Movements doesn't roll off the tongue as well. Rather than delving into a single movement and examining it in greater detail, the book instead takes a wider lens. It uses broad strokes to illustrate a pattern that emerges as you zoom out and see workers rights movements across time. The movements as constructed within the book fall into a cyclical pattern you can practically set your watch to. Workers are…