![]() First edition | |
Author | Amy Goldstein |
---|---|
Language | English |
Subject | History |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | April 18, 2017 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 368 |
Awards | |
ISBN | 1-501-10223-0 |
330.9775 |
Janesville: An American Story is a non-fiction book written by Amy Goldstein and published by Simon & Schuster in 2017. It covers the city of Janesville, Wisconsin, and follows the stories of several of its working-class inhabitants from 2008 to 2013, tracing what happens after the Janesville Assembly Plant shuts down.
It was named as a book of the year by The Economist , [1] one of 100 notable books of 2017 by The New York Times , [2] and one of 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2017 by The Washington Post . [3] Former President Barack Obama also named it one of the best books he read in 2017. [4]
It won the 2018 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize [5] and the 2017 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award. [6] The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, in its award description, called it "a triumph of narrative nonfiction" which "marshalls shoe-leather reporting and original social science into a panoramic portrait of workers, politicians, parents, teenagers, educators, business leaders, and a community struggling to find a way forward." [5]
Patti Waldmeir in The Financial Times states that Janesville "humanises the suffering of the white working class in America at a time when the country critically needs to understand the angst that helped elect the president." [7] Jennifer Senior of The New York Times called it "moving and magnificently well-researched." [8]
Michael Barone, writing in The Wall Street Journal , points out a pro-union bias in the book, but admits that it is "generally fair-minded". [9]
It also received favorable coverage from Joshua Rothman in The New Yorker [10] and Arlie Hochschild in The Washington Post . [11]
Janesville has been mentioned alongside Arlie Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land , J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy , and Joan C. Williams's White Working Class as part of "a growing family of books about the evisceration of the working class in the United States" but which is set apart by "the sophistication of its storytelling and analysis." [8]
Adam Hochschild is an American author, journalist, historian and lecturer. His best-known works include King Leopold's Ghost (1998), To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918 (2011), Bury the Chains (2005), The Mirror at Midnight (1990), The Unquiet Ghost (1994), and Spain in Our Hearts (2016).
Arlie Russell Hochschild is an American professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and writer. Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions that underlie moral beliefs, practices, and social life generally. She is the author of ten books, including the forthcoming Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right. Stolen Pride is a follow-up to her last book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, a New York Times Bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award. Derek Thompson described it as "a Rosetta stone" for understanding the rise of Donald Trump.
Jay Anthony Lukas was an American journalist and author, best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. Common Ground is a classic study of race relations, class conflict, and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as seen through the eyes of three families: one upper-middle-class white, one working-class white, and one working-class African-American. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes.
Lawrence Wright is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as the author of the 2006 nonfiction book Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Wright is also known for his work with documentarian Alex Gibney who directed film versions of Wright's one man show My Trip to Al-Qaeda and his book Going Clear. His 2020 novel, The End of October, a thriller about a pandemic, was released in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, to generally positive reviews.
Melissa Fay Greene is an American nonfiction author. A 1975 graduate of Oberlin College, Greene is the author of six books of nonfiction, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a 2011 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and a 2015 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts.
Jo Becker is an American journalist and author and a three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. She works as an investigative reporter for The New York Times.
Just Kids is a memoir by Patti Smith, published on January 19, 2010, documenting her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe.
Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award is an annual award given to the best business book of the year as determined by the Financial Times. It aims to find the book that has "the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues". The award was established in 2005 and is worth £30,000. Beginning in 2010, five short-listed authors each receive £10,000, previously it was £5,000.
The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home is a book by Arlie Russell Hochschild with Anne Machung, first published in 1989. It was reissued in 2012 with updated data. In the text, Hochschild investigates and portrays the double burden experienced by late-20th-century employed mothers.
Edward Alden is an American journalist, author, and the Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Alden specializes in U.S. economic competitiveness, U.S. trade policy, and visa and immigration policy. Alden is the author of The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11, a finalist for the Lukas Book Prize, and Failure to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy.
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right is a 2016 book by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild. The book sets out to explain the worldview of supporters of the Tea Party movement in Louisiana.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup is a nonfiction book by journalist John Carreyrou, released May 21, 2018. It covers the rise and fall of Theranos, the multibillion-dollar biotech startup headed by Elizabeth Holmes. The book received critical acclaim, winning the 2018 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award.
Jessica Bruder is an American journalist who writes about subcultures and teaches narrative writing at Columbia Journalism School.
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century is a 2017 nonfiction book by American journalist Jessica Bruder about the phenomenon of older Americans who, following the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, adopted transient lifestyles traveling around the United States in search of seasonal work (vandwelling).
Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth is a 2018 non-fiction book by American journalist Sarah Smarsh. The book contains events from her life and the lives of her relatives, and it focuses on cycles of poverty and social class in the U.S. state of Kansas. Heartland was a finalist for the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2018 and a 2019 recipient of the Kansas Notable Book Award.
Sarah Smarsh is an American journalist and nonfiction writer.
The term care drain, coined in 2002 by the feminist sociologist Arlie Hochschild, refers to the migration of women working in caregiving roles and the impact on the families and nations they leave behind when seeking employment in countries with stronger economies. It criticizes how the term "brain drain" often overlooks these women while discussing human capital flight, which typically focuses on professionals leaving their home countries. Conversely, "care gain" refers to the benefits for women migrant workers, their families, and the receiving nations.
Christopher Leonard is an American investigative journalist. He has written three books, The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business, the New York Times best-selling Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America, and The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek.
Gemma Hartley is an American author and journalist best known for a viral article in Harper's Bazaar on emotional labor and her subsequent book Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward.
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City is a book written by Andrea Elliott.