ENOUGH! The Revolt of the American Consumer

by Doris Faber ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 6, 1972

Despite the emphatic title and boldly colored cover, this is a routine, uncontroversial review of consumer protection agencies and advocates since 1883 when we meet USDA chemist Harvey Wiley, who became the ""father of the Pure Food Law."" Kefauver, Consumers' Union, Nader, Rachel Carson, Bess Myerson, the FDA and even the Better Business Bureau are then surveyed as leaders or (in the BBB's case) at least followers of the consumer revolt. From Wiley's war on borax additives to the recent FDA compromise on chicken in hot dogs Faber laces her discussion with examples, but she neither stimulates indignation about the ""chamber of horrors"" she so flatly catalogs nor indicates any awareness of the political-economic complications that any effective revolt would have to face; nor is there any overwhelming evidence here for her closing assertion that ""already the revolt of the American consumer had brought great changes."" This will provide names and cases for those routine school reports on an increasingly popular subject, but youngsters really into the consumer revolt will be busy reading Heilbroner on corporate irresponsibility or the Nader reports themselves.

Pub Date: Nov. 6, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION