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A dynamic historian revisits the workers' internationals, whose scope and significance are commonly overlooked. In current debates about globalization, open and borderless elites are often set in opposition to the immobile and protectionist working classes. This view obscures a major historical fact: for around a century-from the 1860s to the 1970s-worker movements were at the cutting edge of internationalism. The creation in London of the International Workingmen's Association in 1864 was a turning point. What would later be called the "First International" aspired to bring together European and American workers across languages, nationalities, and trades. It was a major undertaking in a context marked by opening borders, moving capital, and exploding inequalities. In this urgent, engaging work, historian Nicolas Delalande explores how international worker solidarity developed, what it accomplished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and why it collapsed over the past fifty years, to the point of disappearing from our memories. "A fascinating book about globalization, internationalism, and wealth redistribution between 1870 and 1914, with lots of lessons for the twenty-first century. When trade and capital flows go global, worker solidarity and political mobilization need to do the same and invent new forms of transnational organizations. A must-read." "An indispensable history of working-class internationalism-this book is a must-read for anybody interested in building solidarity across borders today."

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