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Upton Sinclair's "The Flivver King" stands among the finest of modern American historical novels. It is history as it ought to be writtenfrom the bottom up and the top down, with monumental sensitivity to the compromise and conflict between the two extremes. It's two stories, those of Henry Ford and Ford-worker Abner Shutt, unfold side-by-side, indeed dialectically. They are, in the end, one story: the saga of class and culture in "Ford-America." Originally written in 1937 to aid the United Automobile Workers' organizing drive, "The Flivver King" answers the question, "Why do we need a union?" with quiet eloquence. It is reissued today as a great American novel and an important historical document, but most of all because that question has never gone away and is now more vital than ever.