When C. Wright Mills published The New Men of Power in 1948, he
thought labor leaders a new strategic elite and the unions a set of vanguard organizations that were crucial to "stopping the main drift towards war and slump." Today, as the unions once again seek to play a decisive role in American life, Mills' remarkable probe into the structure and ideology of mid-twentieth-century trade unionism remains essential reading. A new introduction by historian Nelson Lichtenstein offers insight into the Millsian political world at the time he wrote The New Men of Power.
 

C. Wright Mills (1916-62), the author of White Collar: The American Middle Classes, The Power Elite, and other books, taught for many years at Columbia University.
Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is the author of Walter Reuther:
The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit and other books.