Men Is Cheap

Brian P. Luskey is associate professor of history at West Virginia University and author of On the Make: Clerks and the Quest for Capital in Nineteenth-Century America.

Luskey offers a genuinely original take on the Civil War era, a combination of cultural, economic, social, and labor history. . . . The cast of characters is wide, including speculators, soldiers, enslaved and emancipated black people, and headstrong Irish domestic servants. Brokers, Luskey concludes, helped the Union achieve victory in war, but as agents of capitalism, they profited at the expense of those who did the actual work and fighting, a story that seems familiar enough in our own time." - North Carolina Historical Review"The research is very thorough, the analysis of particular items and incidents is perceptive, and the whole book repays close attention and gives us a new vision about how capitalism and its frauds shaped the Civil War."—The American Historical Review"A deeply researched and strongly argued study about the frauds underlying the ethos of free labor . . . and should be read by those interested in labor, political economy, and the Civil War era."—Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies"A necessary caveat to the celebration of the Civil War as the victory for freedom."—Labor The depth and quality of Luskey's archival research, as well as his sharp rendering of the complexities of the Northern free-labor vision, make this book a valuable addition to the labor and cultural history of the Civil War."—The Journal of American History