|
BOOK REVIEW |
| WORKED OVER: The Corporate Sabotage of An American Community |
| Dimitra Doukas Copyright © 2003 Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr; (April 2003) ISBN: 0801488613 |
| Here is the Reader Review written by the PHL for Amazon.com: |
| As a history major with little knowledge of
legal and economic technicalities, I have long puzzled over how such
devices as "trusts" allowed large corporations to greedily
gobble up the fruits of the industrial revolution. Now I know! This book
should be a "must read" for anyone who has difficulty
believing that we have long had class warfare in America. Enron et al
have had a long history of exploiting the labor of the people who work
for them, as well as the interests of the public . This book tells the
story of one of the first such successful corporate sabatoge efforts ...
but, sadly, not the last! Very well documented AND very readable. (I
could almost hear the theme from "Jaws" as I read.) Quite a
scholarly feat! |
| Here is an excerpt of the author's own words in the Introduction: |
| This is not a book of large-scale statistical arguments and the doings of famous people. It studies the corporate ascendancy from the perspective of "ordinary" people in a Central New York State manufacturing region: how they used to live, how the corporations changed their lives, what people thought, what the corporate boosters tried to get them to think, and where they are today. It is a study of great transformations at close range, through the lives of working people, the people most exposed to risk at the front lines of social change. |
| And a little more information for PHS readers: |
| Basically, this book tells the tale of the
corporate "take-over" of a family-owned business in Ilion
(Herkimer County) New York For decades this family had operated
its business in a manner that benefited the family and the community in
which both they and the workers lived. Once the company was taken
over by corporate interests, it was run much the way most "absentee
landlord" endeavors are run. The result was disastrous for
that community.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who
wishes to better understand how |