Jacqueline Jones, American Work: Four Centuries of Black and White Labor. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. 543 pp. $29.95 cloth; $15.00 paper.

The desire for compliant labor and clashes with various noncompliant labor forces: This dynamic forms the guiding thread of Jacqueline Jones's impressive survey of American work. Oddly, the subtitle announces that the book is about “black and white labor” while the introduction explains that the book concerns “the jobs performed by Africans and their descendants in America” (13). Although these descriptions do not match up, both of them are, in fact, accurate. Jones has written a history of racism and resistance, subordination and insubordination.