The two defining moments of Western coalfield labor relations have been massacres: Wyoming's Rock Springs Massacre of 1885 and Colorado's Ludlow Massacre of 1914. But it wasn't just the company guns that were responsible for the deaths of 28 Chinese coal miners and 13 women and children. It was the result of racial tensions and the economics of the coal industry itself.

In Industrializing the Rockies, David A. Wolff places these deadly conflicts and strikes in the context of the Western coal industry from its inception in 1868 to the age of maturity in the early twentieth century. The result is the first book-length study of the emergence of coalfield labor relations and a general overview of the role of coal mining in the American West.

Wolff examines the coal companies and the owners' initial motivations for investment and how these motivations changed over time. He documents the move from speculation to stability in the commodities market, and how this was reflected in the development of companies and company towns.

Industrializing the Rockies also examines the workers and their workplaces: how the miners and laborers struggled to maintain mining as a craft and how the workforce changed, ethnically and racially, eventually leading to the emergence of a strong national union. Wolff shines light on the business of coal mining detailing the market and economic forces that influenced companies and deeply affected the lives of the workers.

Richard G. Condon's ethnography of Inuit adolescence describes the life of young people between the ages of nine and twenty in the small, isolated Inuit community of Holman Island, located in the Northwest Territories of the Canadian Arctic. He begins with an overview of the historical development and contemporary situation of the community, covering social organization, economic adaptations, and recent changes in population structure. Condon details the rapid social, material, and political changes taking place, and the impact of these changes on the behaviors, attitudes, and aspirations of the new generation of Inuit. The author vividly describes the day-to-day activities of Inuit youth, their time playing sports and games, attending school, engaging in sexual play, and simply "hanging out" with their peers. Throughout the book, Condon communicates the young people's perspectives on their own social worlds.