The question of a well-research book on the IWW is a difficult one to answer because first there a many of them in many different ways.  Perhaps the best place to start is to look at the "Annotated Bibliography of Books on the Industrial Workers of the World" by Steve Kellerman which appeared in ASK:  Anarcho-Syndicalist Review # 27 Winter 1999, pp. 25-29.  If you have a problem locating the journal/article, please e-mail me (Fred Lee [log in to unmask]) and I will provide you a copy of it.  If you want the most definitive statement on the best book on the IWW e-mail Jon Bekken ([log in to unmask]).  There are many different kinds of IWW history.  For example, the history of the IWW could be the history of the Australian IWW:

Revolutionary Industrial Unionism:  The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia by Verity Burgmann
The Wobblies at War:  A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia by Frank Cain

Then there are various IWW/revolutionary syndicalism histries around the world:  Revolutionary Syndicalism edited by Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe

As for the United States and Canada, some of the books below are fine, especially the one by Thompson and Bekken which is the official union history and the one by Dubofsky.  But what is missing from these general histories is perhaps one of the best general introduction to the IWW in its own words so to speak is Rebel Voices:  An IWW Anthology edited by Joyce L. Kornbluh.

There are also numerous specific histories which are quite important and interesting.  Some of my favorites are the following:

Solidarity Forever:  An Oral History of the IWW by S. Bird, D. Georgakas, and D. Shaffer
Red November, Black November:  Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World
At the Point of Production:  The Local History of the IWW edited by Joseph R. Conlin
Bread and Roses Too:  Studies of the Wobblies by Joseph R. Conlin
The Casual Laborer and other Essays by Carleton H. Parker
Joe Hill:  The IWW and the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture by Franklin Rosemont
The IWW and the Paterson Silk Strike of 1913 by Anne Huber Tripp
From Syndicalism to Trade Unionism:  The IWW in Ohio, 1905-1950 by Roy Wortman
The Wobblies:  The Industrial Workers of the World by Patrick Renshaw

Additional history and current activities of the IWW can be obtained from the IWW website:  http://www.iww.org. 

One of the major problems with people teaching about the IWW (and even doing research on it) is that they believe that the Union no longer exists--it does as a recognized trade union in the United States (that is recognize by the US Department of Labor) and elsewhere; and that for some strange reason it failed--as opposed to being the only US trade union that the US government actually deliberately attacked and supressed and where laws were passed to criminalize its members--hundreds of Wobs were US political prisoners in the period 1917-1925.  The closest thing to this is the US attack on the US Communist Party during the red scare and McCarthyism.

Another point, 2005 was the 100th anniversity of the formation of the IWW.  A conference was held at the University of Missouri-Kansas City to celebrate it and from it came the following book:

Radical Economics and Labor:  Essays inspired by the IWW Centennial edited by Frederic S. Lee and Jon Bekken.

Finally, just to make the obvious clear, I am a member of the IWW and have been so for the last 25 years.

Fred Lee
________________________________________
From: Societies for the History of Economics [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of lucafiorito [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 4:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] History of the Wobblies

MY LIST WOULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:

Wobblies!: a graphic history of the Industrial Workers of the World
Paul Buhle, Nicole Schulman
Verso, 2005

The Industrial Workers of the World: Its First 100 Years: 1905 Through 2005
Fred Thompson, Jon Bekken, Utah Phillips
Industrial Workers of the World, 2006

Industrial unionism in America
Marion Dutton Savage
Reprint: Ayer Publishing, 1971

We shall be all: a history of the Industrial Workers of the World
Melvyn Dubofsky, Joseph Anthony McCartin
University of Illinois Press, 2000

Launching of the Industrial Workers of the World
Brissenden, Paul F.
New York : Johnson Reprint Corp., 1966.



On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:05:34 -0400, CRMcCann wrote
> Google Books lists several, including:
>
> Vincent St. John, "The IWW: Its History, Structure, and Methods"  (1912)
> Paul Brissenden, "The IWW: A Study of American Syndicalism" (1919),
> Lenny Flank, "IWW: A Documentary History" (2007)
>
> (To the question of well-researched, that I cannot answer.)
>
> As far as I can see, only Brissenden is available online.
>
> Charles McCann


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