Few episodes in North American working-class history have attracted asmuch attention as the rise and fall of the Molly Maguires. The term refers to asecret movement of Irish miners who employed threats and violence in confrontingtheir adversaries in the anthracite coal fields in the decade after the US CivilWar. Most interpretations have been ideologically charged and focused mainly onthe violence itself, beginning with sensational newspaper accounts and AlanPinkerton's own book based on information from his operative JamesMcParland who infiltrated the movement. At least one study, J. WalterColeman's The Molly Maguire Riots (Richmond, 1936), showed ahealthy skepticism for McParland's biased sources—Pinkerton andothers who were more interested in hanging the Molly Maguires than inunderstanding them. In The Molly Maguires (New York, 1983 [1964]),however, Wayne Broehl, Jr., developed the more typical view that the Mollieswere terrorists and the Pinkertons heroes. Though he handled the evidence lesscritically than Coleman, it is Broehl's account that has been viewed as thestandard, perhaps the definitive account for more than a generation. With allthis work and much more, why do we need another study of the Molly Maguires andwhat is it that makes Kevin Kenny's by far the most valuable treatment ofthem?