Here’s my post on The Nation‘s site about how history textbooks distort and obscure labor history:

Taken together, such portrayals make it easy to come away with the sense that unions were an understandable response to sweatshop conditions in the past, but have been rendered unnecessary, and even counterproductive, given contemporary legal regulations and a more enlightened business class. Not coincidentally, that’s the impression you’d get from a lot of our newspapers, politicians, and TV shows too. Meanwhile, Walgreens fires an 18-year worker for grabbing a bag of chips to ward off a diabetic attack.

Check it out.