“The most illuminating business book of the year.... If you really want to understand what’s going on in today’s real economy — beyond the headlines about new stock-market highs, tax policy or the latest list of billionaires — spend some time with this true tale.”
—Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times
Description
* Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year * Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize? * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book * A Wall Street Journal Best Book * An Economist Best Book * A Business Insider Best Book *
“A gripping story of psychological defeat and resilience” (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post)—an intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class.
This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its main factory shuts down—but it’s not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up.
Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nation’s oldest operating General Motors assembly plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession. Now, with intelligence, sympathy, and insight into what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval, Goldstein shows the consequences of one of America’s biggest political issues.
“Moving and magnificently well-researched” (The New York Times), Janesville takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why it’s so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class.
Reviews
“Janesville is haunting in part because it’s a success story.... One is awed by the dignity and levelheadedness of its protagonists, who seem to represent the best of America.... Goldstein is a talented storyteller, and we root for her characters as, moment by moment, they try their hardest.”
—The New Yorker
“A superb feat of reportage, Janesville combines a heart-rending account of the implications of the closing on GM workers and their families with a sobering analysis of the response of the public and private sectors. The book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the economy of the Rust Belt — and its implications for America’s once-proud middle class.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“We’ve been hearing a lot since the November 2016 election about the press missing The Story of a middle class losing ground, hope, and heart. But it turns out that Amy Goldstein, one of our finest reporters, was on it all along. Her vivid portrait of a quintessential American town in distress affirms Eudora Welty’s claim that 'one place understood helps us understand all places better.'”
—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Carry Me Home
