The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon. By William Adler. Bloomsbury USA; 448 pages; $30. Buy from Amazon.com

WAS Joe Hill, a famous American socialist songwriter, guilty of the murder for which he was executed in 1915? William Adler, an investigative historian, delivers a controversial verdict. Hill, he declares, was probably innocent, but came to welcome a dramatic death—by a firing squad in Utah. By then Hill had concluded that he was worth more dead than alive to his friends in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a revolutionary labour movement known as “the Wobblies”, and so spurned all chances of a pardon.

If Mr Adler is right, Hill achieved the martyrdom he craved. The song that inspired the title of this history, “Joe Hill”, has been sung by Paul Robeson in Carnegie Hall, Joan Baez at the Woodstock Festival and Pete Seeger at left-wing gatherings everywhere. “The Preacher and the Slave”, a parodic hymn that Hill composed to “fan the flames of discontent”, is remembered, albeit with sepia-tinged nostalgia, as the signature tune of the Wobblies.

The movement Hill lived and died for has proved less durable. As Mr Adler recalls, the Wobblies flourished for a brief, electrifying moment at the dawn of the 20th century, when industrial capital was new, raw and brutal. At the time the IWW's vision of a new worker-controlled order seemed “if not on the verge of becoming reality, not preposterous either”.

Public opinion turned against the Wobblies after they preached pacifism when America went to war in 1917. The claim by the movement's leader, William (“Big Bill”) Haywood, that “it is better to be a traitor to your country than a traitor to your class”, was seen as treasonous even by Americans previously sympathetic to the cause.

Forgotten now, and almost overlooked in Mr Adler's book, are the victims in the Hill case. John Morrison, a grocer and the father of six, was shot dead after two men entered his shop in Salt Lake City shortly before closing time on January 10th 1914. The evidence brought against Hill was circumstantial. The prosecution alleged that the grocer's 17-year-old son had fired several times at the intruders with a Colt .38 army revolver before he, too, was shot dead by them. Within hours of the murders, Hill was treated for a fresh gunshot wound. The doctor and a colleague both said that Hill had a gun in his possession. But Hill's gun was never traced. Neither was his alleged accomplice.