John Steinbeck's`"In Dubios Battle": Summary John Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle" is a relentlessly fast-paced novel of social unrest and the story of a young man's struggle for identity, In Dubious Battle is set in the California apple country, where a strike by migrant workers against rapacious landowners spirals out of control. Caught up in this upheaval is Jim Nolan, a once aimless man who finds himself in the course of the strike, briefly becomes its leader, and is ultimately crushed in its service. Jim Nolan's father was a working man driven to his death by blow of police clubs and pistol butts. As a youngster, Jim witnessed both his father's c