Riding with the Revolution (2024) tells the story of Americans who from 1900 to 1925 became involved with the Mexican Revolution. John Reed actually saddled up and rode with Pancho Villa. Later, American war resisters crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, where they helped found the Communist Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and a Feminist Council. Protestant ministers, Socialist Eugene Debs, Samuel Gompers head of the AFL, the anarchist Emma Goldman, and Communists John Reed, Louis Fraina, Bertram Wolfe, as well as foreign politicos M.N. Roy, Sen Katayama, and Alexander Borodin all took a hand in the Mexican labor movement. Copyright Year: 2024

Riding with the Revolution has been published by Brill (https://brill.com/display/title/19786) in an edition intended or libraries that costs $185. Ask your university library to buy it. Next year it will be available from Haymarket next year at a cost o $40.

Trotsky in Tijuana – “Trotsky’s final exile in Mexico was one of solitude, the world of his concerns an ocean away. He wrote in profusion, analyzing and responding to events of gigantic magnitude, but his milieu, the revolutionary generation of Bolsheviks, were wiped out by Stalin. And then Trotsky was assassinated.

“Imagine now that Stalin’s assassin missed his mark, and Trotsky was whisked off to Tijuana, the southern border of San Diego, but still in Mexico, to live out his days, alive but even more remote. That is the premise of Dan La Botz’s riveting historical novel, a ‘what if’ immersed in Left Oppositionist thought and praxis that convincingly creates an alternative reality. La Botz masterfully weaves the history, politics and people into a gripping tale with twists and turns that are no less amazing than the history itself. You won’t be able to put it down, and you’ll argue with it long after.”

– Suzi Weissman, author of Victor Serge: A Political Biography

Go here to learn more about the book and to read reviews:: trotskyintijuana.com

Trotsky in Tijuana can now be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Store, Apple Store,Kobo Store or from BookLocker. The e-book is only $2.99

The Nicaraguan Revolution: What Went Wrong? A Marxist Analysis =This volume is a valuable re-assessment of the Nicaraguan Revolution by a Marxist historian of Latin American political history. It shows that the FSLN (‘the Sandinistas’), with politics principally shaped by Soviet and Cuban Communism, never had a commitment to genuine democracy either within the revolutionary movement or within society at large; that the FSLN’s lack of commitment to democracy was a key factor in the way that revolution was betrayed from the 1970s to the 1990s; and that the FSLN’s lack of rank-and-file democracy left all decision-making to the National Directorate and ultimately placed that power in the hands of Daniel Ortega. Pursuing his narrative into the present, La Botz shows that, once their would-be bureaucratic ruling class project was defeated, Ortega and the FSLN leadership turned to an alliance with the capitalist class. –

Haymarket Publishers https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1121-what-went-wrong-the-nicaraguan-revolution

Go here to see a brief videopresentton of the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3dsFrAw53c

See this review of the book: file:///Users/daniellabotz/Downloads/alana,+12.+A+marxist+analysis+of+the+Nicaraguan…+Graham+E.+L.+Holton.%20(1).pdf

Le Nouveaum Populisme Américain -L’’élection de Donald Trump en 2017, qui a effrayé le monde, n’est pas un accident. Elle est le symptôme des profondes crises économique et idéologique qui travaillent­ la société américaine.
Depuis le milieu des années 1960, les États-Unis ont connu plusieurs bouleversements majeurs. D’abord le massif mouvement des droits civiques contre le racisme structurel qui gangrène la société américaine. Ensuite, le vaste mouvement contre la guerre du Vietnam où la puissance impérialiste a connu une défaite cuisante. Et enfin, le profond mouvement de libération des femmes qui contesté les bases patriarcales de la société américaine. Ces secousses sismiques successives conjuguées aux crises économiques à répétition, dont la dernière en date est celle de 2008, ont profondément affecté le tissu social et les représentations idéologiques qui pouvaient unir les Américain·es. Face à ce désordre croissant et aux angoisses ou paniques collectives, les deux partis dominants, républicain et démocrate, ont été bien en peine d’offrir de nouveaux horizons, une explication du monde cohérente.
Pour Daniel La Botz, l’histoire de son pays est jalonnée de ce type de situation d’instabilité profonde du système où de nouvelles forces populistes émergent pour offrir une nouvelle cohésion sociale régressive. Le nouveau populisme américain n’est donc pas une surprise nous explique La Botz qui revient sur cette longue et puissante tradition américaine qui a accédé au pouvoir par deux fois, avec Andrew Jackson au 19^e siècle et avec Trump au 21^e.

Available for purchase at Syllepse: https://www.syllepse.net/index.phtml?srub=36&lng=FR&SKEYWORD=La+Botz

An English language draft of this book can be found at Academia.edu Dan La Botz

A Vision from the Heartland – I argue in the book you are about to read that to solve the problems of our economy and the environment, and to end America‘s wars abroad, that we must begin to create a socialist society. A socialist society is one where the American working people collectively own and democratically plan and manage the major industries and enterprises. I call for the abolition of the corporations and of capitalism in order to create a society of plenty for all. I believe that such a society can only be created by building a powerful movement for democracy and for working class power. – From the Preface

This book was written for my 2010 campaign in Ohio for the U.S. Senate..

Cesar Chavez and La Causa – In this powerful and moving biography of one of the greatest labor leaders in the history of America , students come face-to-face with an inspirational man whose trials and tribulations echoed the struggles of modern America and whose courage, simplicity and faith changed agriculture in America forever. Paperback, brief, and inexpensive, each of the titles in the Library of American Biography series focuses on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of American history and national life. In addition, each biography relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times. This text focuses on Chavez, but also provides the much needed background of the farm workers movement, the formation of the UFW and the history of migrant workers in the U.S. This text incorporates the latest scholarship on Chavez’s life and times, but makes the story accessible to students in both survey and upper division courses in American history.

Made in Indonesia –Independent researcher Dan La Botz gives us a personal look at the Indonesian workers who are taking on global corporate giants and igniting a multinational labor solidarity movement. Through rare personal interviews with Indonesian workers, La Botz describes the inspiring, powerful events that are transforming the world’s fourth-largest country. He shows us how workers earning the equivalent of $2 a day are challenging the sweatshop conditions of factories run by U.S.-based multinationals such as Nike and Reebok. Their dynamic new labor movement emerged in Indonesia in the 1990s, helping to bring down the brutal dictatorship of the U.S.-backed General Suharto in May 1998. When Indonesian workers toured U.S. campuses and trade union halls in 1999 and 2000, a new generation of student activists in the United States was awakened. Reform or Revolution? will be required reading for those activists and for all those interested in building international labor solidarity. Dan La Botz is a researcher and organizer with Global Exchange and currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of Mask of Democracy and Democracy in Mexico , both published by South End Press, and Rank-and-File Rebellion. La Botz is the editor of Mexican Labor News and Analysis . His writing appears regularly in Against the Current, Labor Notes , and Z Magazine . He has traveled to Indonesia several times to report on the Indonesian labor movement.

Democracy in Mexico – Placing this book in the context of NAFTA and Mexican social movements, journalist and historian Dan La Botz unveils the forces behind the Zapatista movement and re-examines the circumstances surrounding the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. Contains a detailed analysis of how Ernesto Zedillo and the PRI won the 1994 elections through widespread electoral fraud. La Botz provides a first-hand account of the founding of National Democratic Convention, the new force for democracy and social justice in Mexico led by Rosario Ibarra, Mexico’s leading human rights activist and its first female presidential candidate.

Maek of Democracy-“As the White House heralds a free trade zone from the northern coast of Canada to the southern tip of Mexico, across the North American continent we ask ourselves what this means for our lives. Will the oppressive working and living conditions of Mexican labor improve or will the conditions of U.S. and Canadian people further deteriorate? The prospects are not encouraging. Using scores of interviews with Mexican rank and file workers, labor officials, women’s organizers, lawyers, and human rights activists, Dan La Botz illustrates the precarious position of workers in the Mexican economy of the 1990s. This timely book includes a discussion of the border plants called maquiladoras, histories of recent rank and file worker insurgencies, and a critique of the Bush administration’s North American Free Trade Agreement.” – Goodreads

The Troublemaker’s Handbook –United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain recently called A Troublemaker’s Handbook his “other bible.” Here’s how it came to be written:

In 1990 I received a call from my friend Jane Slaughter at Labor Notes. She said that Rand Wilson, a union organizer and friend of Labor Notes, had come up with an idea for a rank-and-file organizers manual and she wanted to talk to me about it. I drove up to Detroit and had a meeting with Labor Notes staffers Jane, Kim Moody, and Jim West about the proposal.

Rather than a typical manual telling you “how to do it,” the book was a collection of firsthand stories from workers describing “how we did it.” Download it here.

I agreed that we needed some book to help rank-and-file workers organize, but I thought an organizers manual of the usual sort would be dry and boring. I suggested instead that we interview activists from around the country and let them tell their stories of how they had been successful in organizing around different sorts of issues. Jane took on the task of providing lists of people for me to talk to. With the phone numbers she provided I began to interview people.

Jane and I came up with the topics around which the book would be organized, which would become the book’s chapters. I began to write up the chapters and when I finished one, I would mail the floppy disk to Jane, who would then pop it into her computer, edit it, and return it to me. Jane and I, both journalists and good friends, had a great working relationship. Once she sent back to me a chapter with a note: “This one is no good. Do it over.” Jane was usually right, so I wrote it again.

I wrote and appended to each chapter a set of questions—”Action Questions”—so that readers could ask themselves how they might use such strategies and tactics. Ellis Boal, another friend of Labor Notes and a labor attorney, wrote legal notes where necessary. Jim West provided photographs for the book. I also, over some opposition, pushed for the title: A Troublemaker’s Handbook. As I said at the time, we’re always called “troublemakers,” so let’s own it.

A free pdf download is available from Labor Notes here: A Troublemaker’s Handbook (PDF)

Edward L. Doheny – As the first to discover oil in Los Angeles–which sparked an oil boom there–this multi-faceted entrepreneur profoundly influenced the growth of both Los Angeles and the state of California. Then, as one of its earliest developers, Doheny helped put Beverly Hills on the map. On an international scale, he established vast oil fields in Mexico and virtually controlled that country’s oil industry. This petroleum state that Doheny created and ruled extended over Veracruz, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Patosi and was defended by a Doheny-financed army of 6,000 men. The oil baron’s opposition to the various revolutionary governments is legendary and some historians believe that Doheny was responsible for the murder of Mexican President Carranza. Finally, Doheny played a major role in the Teapot Dome Scandal, the greatest political impropriety in U.S. history up to that time. Dan La Botz has taken this rich collection of material plus new information on Doheny’s personal life and provided the first biography of a man who, for better or worse, left his mark on the nation’s industrial and economic development.

Rank-and-File Rebellion; Teamsters for a Democratic Union – Early in the book, the author provides a useful synopsis of the growth of the Teamsters union, including insightful discussions of the roles of the three Teamsters presidents who shaped the organization — Daniel Tobin, Dave Beck, and Jimmy Hoffa. This summary also provides an illuminating treatment of the relationship between organized crime and the union, including its beginnings, its impact on the organization, and its ramifications for the membership of the union.

Most of the book, however, focuses on the various reform movements within the Teamsters. La Botz — who, as a former TDU activist, makes no claim to objectivity — tells the story of these efforts by rank-and-file Teamsters to change their organization in a slightly unconventional way: through the eyes of the reformers themselves. The author begins his discussion of this subject by tracing the reform movement back to its origins in the 1960s. Each of the reform organizations born during this period among long haul truck drivers, steel haulers, United Parcel Service employees, and others is examined in terms of the conditions that led to its information and the goals and activities of the various groups. The personal stories — backgrounds, work histories, union activities — of key individuals in these groups are women into the discussion of the reform organizations themselves. This approach gives the reader more than a sterile recounting of the organizational history of the reform movement by providing insight into the people involved and the ideals and principles that drove them.

By the late 1970s, TDU emerged as the primary reform organization in the union. Much of the book focuses on this group’s actions is fighting the Teamster leadership’s policies on deregulation and concession bargaining, as well as in challenging the pervasive corruption and undemocratic practices that continued to plague the union under the presidencies of Frank Fitzsimmons, Roy Williams, and Jacki Presser. The book emphasizes the efforts of TDU to work at the local level to build support and membership strength in order to bring about change in the way the union was governed. – Paul F. Clark Associate Professor Department of Labor Studies and Industrial Relations Penn State University

Dan La Botz discusses his books with Studs Terkel – https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/dan-la-botz-conversation-studs-terkel

Available from Verso Publishers at: https://www.versobooks.com/products/1314-rank-and-file-rebellion

The Crisiz of Mexican Labon – This history of the Mexican labor movement, journalist Dan La Botz concentrates on labor politics, the relationship of the unions to the state, and their relevance to other struggles for union independence. Prefaced by Mexican Congressman Ricardo Pascoe, The Crisis of Mexican Labor outlines the country’s economic and political crises. The book also gives a complete overview of the labor movement from 1920 to 1987. La Botz chronicles workers’ strikes and their results. He also demonstrates how Mexican union confederations, and their ruling bureaucracies, have clearly depended upon the material, the political, and even the military support of the state. This, the author contends, is the central problem of Mexican workers. They must develop an internationalist, socialist ideology and reorganize independently of the state. To do so will entail restructuring the entire system.

Mu chapter written with wit Stephen R. Shalom

Ukraine and the Peace Movement

2022

My chapter:

Trump Makes Early Enemies

2017

My chapter::

In the Factories and in the Streets:

Going to the Working Class

2017

My chapters:

The Catholic Church and Strikes

and

Agricultural Strike

and

Teamster Strikes and Organizing,

1934-1964

2015

My chapter

Chapter 10 The Tea Party and the Unions: Class Struggle in America at the Opening of the 21st Century

2012

My chapter:

The Tumultuous Teamsters of the 1970s

2010

My chapter in (Vo. 2):

Farmwork and the Labor of

Meatpacking and Poultry Processing:

Another Way of Working is Possible

2009

My chapter:

The World Crisis, Capital and Labour:

The 1930s and Today

2009

My chapter:

The World Crisis

and the World Labor Movement

2009

My chapter:

A New American Workers Movment

Has Begun

2010

My chapters:

Shop Floor Tactics

Strikes

Workers Centers

Trouble Making for the Long Haul

with Jane Slaughter

2006

My chapter:

Porto Rico:

Report on the High Mortality on the Island

(1900) (W. W. King)

Commentary

2005

My articles:

“Ernesto Zedillo,”

“Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas,”

“Carlos Salinas de Gortari,”

“Ron Carey,”

Colliers Encyclopedia (Macmillan Educational Company)

1993 and 1996 editions .

My chapter:

The Team in Mexico

1994

2008

2000

with Stephanie Lue and Charlie Post

Pamphlet available at:

1997

1980

I was the author, but this was pubished anonymously.,

1978