Hailed in a starred Publishers Weekly review as a work of "impressive even-handedness and analytic acuity . . . that gracefully handles a broad range of subject matter," From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend is the first comprehensive look at American history through the prism of working people. From indentured servants and slaves in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake to high-tech workers in contemporary Silicon Valley, the book "[puts] a human face on the people, places, events, and social conditions that have shaped the evolution of organized labor" (Library Journal).

From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend also "thoroughly includes the contributions of women, Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, and minorities, and considers events often ignored in other histories," writes Booklist, which adds that "thirty pages of stirring drawings by ‘comic journalist’ Joe Sacco add an unusual dimension to the book.