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BOOM, BUST, EXODUS

Name: BOOM, BUST, EXODUS
Author: Chad Broughton
ISBN: 978-0199765614

THE RUST BELT, THE MAQUILAS, AND A TALE OF TWO CITIES

by Chad Broughton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 2, 2015

Though somewhat academic and consistently grim, Broughton’s book provides ample documentation of a central truth of...

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You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. As this sociological study shows, that, at least, is what they tell the eggs.

Galesburg, Illinois, was once a town of steel, glass and rubber, devoted to meeting “America’s seemingly insatiable postwar appetite for appliances.” Newcomer workers received the less-than-desirable jobs, loading trucks and stuffing refrigerators with insulation and the like. “Appliance City,” as the enormous factory was called, had a population of 5,000 in its heyday, and it was something of a blue-collar paradise, its jobs paying $15-plus per hour with ample benefits. As Broughton (Public Policy/Univ. of Chicago) observes, in the late 1950s, Admiral, Maytag and other American manufacturers were producing 3 million refrigerators per year, along with washers and dryers. Half a century later, almost all that work had been outsourced, the good factory work moving to plants just across the border in Mexico, where a $15-per-hour job could be filled for $15 per day or less. As a result, the sleepy border town of Reynosa, Mexico, where Galesburg’s jobs went, has increased 1,000 percent in population, bringing all the usual crime and anomie. Broughton limns the story with interviews with those left behind and those newly hired, as well as the intermediaries who profit from others’ loss. One of them, central to the story, “saw himself as a warrior, fighting to take Rust Belt jobs and to stop China from stealing low-wage work from the maquilas.” That’s loyalty of a sort, one supposes. Sadder still is the author’s account of the cognitive dissonance that has settled like a shroud over both cities, as workers in Reynosa work 13-hour shifts and lose connections with their families and as the people of Galesburg try to convince themselves that things are for the better in a new world of flipping burgers and stocking shelves at the big-box store down the road.

Though somewhat academic and consistently grim, Broughton’s book provides ample documentation of a central truth of late-American history—namely, that capital has no country.

Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2015

ISBN: 978-0199765614

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014

Categories:

CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | POLITICS | ISSUES & CONTROVERSIES | GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES

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THE ABORTIONIST

A WOMAN AGAINST THE LAW

by Rickie Solinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 1994

Though she has a superb story, Solinger never quite finds the voice with which to tell it. Despite these rough edges, well...

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Solinger's (Wake Up, Little Susie, 1992) biography of abortionist Ruth Barnett introduces us to a compelling character and to the underdocumented history of illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade.

Between 1918 and 1968, Ruth Barnett performed some 40,000 abortions in Portland, Oreg. Her life story reveals as simplistic the popular stereotype of illegal abortionists as unscrupulous, predatory opportunists indifferent to women's health and safety. Although Barnett lived well and flamboyantly, she was also motivated by a profound desire to help those in need. All her life, she acknowledged that her work was illegal but insisted that abortion should be a woman's personal decision. Indeed, she could not turn down women and girls who had no other options. Barnett's skills—she never lost a patient, and medical complications from her operations were extremely rare—were well-known to doctors throughout the Northwest, who frequently referred patients to her, and her antiseptic offices with up-to-date-equipment were hardly the dangerous, infection-ridden sites of current "back-alley'' mythology (though such outfits certainly did exist). Solinger manages to thoroughly engage the reader in Barnett's life without excessively lionizing her or retreating into revisionist polemics. This groundbreaking work should encourage further research on—and popular interest in—the pre-Roe abortionists. Unfortunately, Solinger's prose is inconsistent: at times too dry, at times overwritten and melodramatic. A plethora of mixed metaphors muddy the text, and awkward phrasing disrupts the narrative throughout.

Though she has a superb story, Solinger never quite finds the voice with which to tell it. Despite these rough edges, well worth the attention of anyone interested in the history of women's reproductive rights.

Pub Date: Oct. 2, 1994

ISBN: 0-02-929865-2

Page Count: 250

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS
by Rickie Solinger

- BOOK REVIEW
WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE
by Rickie Solinger

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TALKING FROM 9 TO 5

HOW WOMEN'S AND MEN'S CONVERSATIONAL STYLES AFFECT WHO GETS HEARD, WHO GETS CREDIT, AND WHAT GETS DONE AT WORK

by Deborah Tannen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 19, 1994

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The workplace (primarily the office) is the setting for this third volume of Tannen's Linguistics Lite trilogy. Tannen (Sociolinguistics/Georgetown) sticks close to the main idea she popularized almost a decade ago in That's Not What I Meant (1985): Men and women have different conversational styles that are equally valid (though unequally valued). Here, she describes women's disadvantages in the workplace: They are paid less than men for the same work and face ``sexism'' (a term Tannen keeps dubiously between quotation marks), a glass ceiling, and sexual harassment. Why do such problems persist? Tannen considers the difference in male and female conversational style as a primary cause. Women are likely to have an indirect manner, to apologize more, and to offer softer criticism; they're problem preventers instead of heroic crisis solvers; they generally strive for the appearance of equality with, not superiority to, their co-workers. Many (male) bosses overlook the value of this style. Tannen concludes that women should go with their own approach, but they should also try to be assertive and worry less about being liked than about being competent. Yet in the next breath, she acknowledges that women who act assertive may bring unpleasant consequences on themselves. In the end, she reaches for platitudes, blithely recommending that workers adopt a mix of styles and that managers learn to recognize and appreciate quality in diverse forms. She says ``on that happy day, the glass ceiling will become a looking glass through which a fair percentage of Alices will be able to step.'' Readers of her earlier books will find much that is familiar, from the research to the conclusions. Women facing a hostile work environment and seeking substantive improvements in their situation are likely to find that Tannen's recourse to ``stylistic differences'' ultimately offers little help. (First printing of 200,000; first serial to New York Times Magazine and Redbook; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; Quality Paperback Book Club main selection; Fortune Book Club main selection; author tour)