In this wide-ranging and often fascinating study of trade unionism in the longshore sector of New York, San Pedro, and New Orleans and the steel industry in Atlanta and Youngstown, Bruce Nelson sets out to pursue three central areas of inquiry. The first is an investigation into the “relative importance of employers and workers in shaping racially segmented hierarchies in the workplace” (xxv). The second is an examination of “the relationship between organized labor and the struggle for black equality and the role of trade unions in diminishing or—in some cases—deepening racial inequality” (xxv). Third, he tackles “the question of working class agency. What did workers want? What forces shaped what they could ‘do and dream'” (xxv)? Nelson delivers on part of this ambitious agenda, spending more time on the second area of inquiry than on the first and third. He carries out the second task most effectively, coming down hard on the unions he studies—the American Federation of Labor's (AFL) International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the Congress of Industrial Organization's (CIO) International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU) and United Steelworkers of America. Indeed, the book's strongest contribution lies in its careful demonstration of these unions' multiple shortcomings when it came to black equality.