Award winner: Our Daily Bread

The Michael Harrington Book Award, given annually by the New Political Science Section of the American Political Science Association, recognizes “a recent outstanding book that demonstrates how scholarship can be used in the struggle for a better world.” This year’s prize has been awarded to Geoff Mann for his book Our Daily Bread: Wages, Workers, and the Political Economy of the American West.

In Our Daily Bread, Geoff Mann examines struggles over wages to reveal ways in which the wage becomes a critical component in the making of social hierarchies of race, gender, and citizenship. Taking three wage disputes in the natural resources industry as his case studies, Mann demonstrates that wage negotiation is not just about income — it’s also about personal identity in a capitalist society.

Praise from the Award Committee:

“Compelling, provocative, and creative. . . . [Mann’s] case studies show us the role of wage struggles in the creation of nationalistic, gender, and racial identities as the cultural politics of wages unfold over time and in different contexts.”

Congratulations to Geoff Mann! The award will be presented at APSA’s annual meeting in August.