MAKING SNEAKERS

by Bruce McMillan ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 26, 1980

Exactly, mechanically that: 26 pages of dry, unilluminating, and certainly uninspiring description of the manufacturing process which is illustrated concurrently in 54 identical-size, side-by-side photos (a band of photos, that is, stretching across the lower half of the wide pages). The text begins, bluntly: ""First, sheets of rubber and chemicals are heated and mixed between two huge rollers""; it provides no amplification and very littrle explanation (how, for example, does one ""mix"" sheets); it makes no observations of a general nature--never allows for a reflective pause--and demonstrates nothing, indeed, beyond the many steps involved in making a pair of sneakers (on the assumption, perhaps, that that's enough of a lesson). The photos are similarly lacking in variety: all but one or two are close-ups of parts of machinery, parts of sneakers, hands holding parts of sneakers or inserting them in the machinery. We never see the factory or the people. And in its monotomy the book, counterproductively, actually makes the process dull.

Pub Date: March 26, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION