Book Description

Written for those who want to break away from rigid schedules, unappreciative bosses, and soul-sapping commutes, this book will put prospective Internet entrepreneurs on the road to success. The basics of Internet mechanics and commerce are analyzed and followed by examinations of successful Internet businesses. Providing more than just technical information, this manual is also a guide to prioritizing what the entrepreneur wants to get out of the business and determining what level of risk is comfortable. This method ensures that the business chosen will match the goals and aspirations of the entrepreneur. Each of the 101 business profiles includes promotion techniques to help these start-ups get on the road to success. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

More comprehensive than similar titles.
If you've ever dreamed of owning your own business but don't want to be tied down to a brick and mortar building, then this is the book for you. Starting an Internet business could not be easier with the help of the information provided. The book starts with interview information from three successful Internet businesses and then follows that with how to get your point across, the various formats for a storefront, required features of the successful storefront, payment options, and levels of e-business. From there it moves to helping determine what is important to you and how to use that to find the right business for you. From there it moves to the profiles of successful businesses. These profiles are complete with how to market the business, startup costs, skills needed, online examples, etc. It finally concludes with information on how to build your site, get it submitted to search engines, e-mail marketing, using links and pretty much just about everything that you need to know in order to get the business up and running.

Susan Sweeney, the owner of an international Internet firm, has produced a very thorough and easy to understand book. Probably the best book available today on starting an Internet business from scratch, it is a highly recommended read. ... Read more

Reviews (15)

I loved this book!
I read this book years ago while living in California, working with many Mexican immigrants as a school teacher. Coyotes spoke right to my heart...I couldn't put it down. I think Ted Connover is an excellent writer and a very brave, intelligent and adventurous guy! This continues to be my all time favorite book; the one I lend out to my dearest friends. I am looking forward to reading his other books.

REAL LIFE DRAMA AND ADVENTURE
Having recently read NEWJACK: GUARDING SING SING, I was motivated to look into other Conover works. The impression he left with Newjack was to be reinforced by the flawless COYOTES.

Conover, the authour, goes where no American would dare. He befriends and lives along side Mexican immigrants who cross the border every year to find agricultural jobs. He details several occassions of crossing the border, a series of hardships and dangers. In his tales the reader is given first hand accounts of brutal mexican police, pesky immigration officers, and the ruthless and dangerous coyotes who smuggle illegals over the border and throughout the border territories. For Conover, interviews were not enough, he walked more than a few miles in their shoes.

Not only does Conover do the adrenaline pumping crossings but he lives life on both sides of the border. He spends season in citrus groves in Arizona, California, and Florida. He spends the offseason in a mountainous Mexican ranchero, among what most of us would consider poverty. Through it all he does a moving and mesmorizing job of painting the picture of the migrant worker.

The book is more than investigative non-fiction, it is a flowing story, encompassing a struggle few have accurately documented. The book reads fast, simultaneously entertaing and interesting the reader. This stands as a favorite in any non-fiction collection. Five stars and then some.

A New Outlook on My Fellow Americans
The Mexicans you see everyday could quite possibly be illegal aliens. Then again they might also be United States citizens. These illegal aliens come from all over Mexico, and travel to work anywhere they can in the United States. From Idaho to Florida, they keep American produce in the grocery stores for less than minimum wage. The wages they earn may be appalling to many Americans, but to them it is immensely better than what they would earn in Mexico. Ted Conover tells his amazing journey of border hopping with illegal aliens in "Coyotes". Through either courage or just plain insanity, he endures a hike in the heat of the desert, a freezing winter road-trip in a busted up car, corrupt police, and of course the gun-toting immigrant smugglers, coyotes. This is an excellent read, and the best non-fiction book I have ever read. I would recommend this book to those who have interacted with Mexicans, and those who have not.

Fantastic work
I am a bilingual teacher living and working among recent immigrants to the US, and I found this book very enlightening and well written. This book spoke directly to my heart.

Mexicans are human beings
The author focus on the human side of the Mexican illegal aliens. You learn from this book that there is no reason to discriminate against Mexicans. If Americans give themselves a chance to meet Mexicans, they are going to find a beautiful friendship.
While reading this book, you are going to laugh. The author describes excellent the language and cultural differences between Americans and Mexicans. ... Read more

Book Description

We are on the verge of the nation’s worst nursing shortage in history. Dedicated nurses are leaving hospitals in droves, and there are not enough new recruits to the profession to meet demand. Even hospitals that were once very highly regarded for the quality of their nursing care, such as Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, now struggle to fill vacant positions. What happened? Dana Beth Weinberg argues that hospital restructuring in the 1990s is to blame.

In their attempts to retain profit margins or even just to stay afloat, hospitals adopted a common set of practices to cut costs and increase revenues. Many strategies squeezed greater productivity out of nurses and other hospital workers. Nurses’ workloads increased to the point that even the most skilled nurses questioned whether they could provide minimal, safe care to patients. As hospitals hemorrhaged money, it seemed that no one—not hospital administrators, not doctors—felt they could afford to listen to nurses.

Through a careful look at the effects of the restructuring strategies chosen and implemented by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the author examines management’s efforts to balance service and survival. By showing the effects of hospital restructuring on nurses’ ability to plan, evaluate, and deliver excellent care, Weinberg provides a stinging indictment of standard industry practices that underestimate the contribution nurses make both to hospitals and to patient care. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nu
Weinberg (Brandeis Univ.) provides an incredible account of her observations of the state of nursing at the newly merged Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center. Her goal was "to find out why the nurses are crying." Each chapter thoroughly examines current issues faced by the professional nursing staff as seen through their eyes. These issues are similar to those faced by nurses nationally as financial goals take precedence to quality patient care. Issues that Weinberg examines include a shift from primary nursing to team nursing, replacement of licensed personnel with nonlicensed technicians, overwhelming workloads, increasing nursing shortage, restructuring of nursing leadership, lack of administrative support, and deterioration of the physician-nurse relationship. Dialogue from focus groups provides a revealing account of how frustrated nurses were at this institution. Hospital administration often interpreted complaints from nurses as simply an effort to resist change. Weinberg also presents data indicating how ineffective these changes were at reducing financial debt, and the detrimental impact they have had on nursing care. An excellent account of challenges faced by nurses today. ... Read more

Book Description

The second edition of Working Women in America: Split Dreams highlights current research on critical issues affecting American women in today's global workplace. It features updated information and examples, including extended discussions of women's activism within and outside of the workplace, the impact of globalization, the effects of the glass ceiling and sexual harassment, and women's roles in the U.S. labor movement. Retaining the focus of the first edition, this text emphasizes the continuity of women's work experience. It seeks to dispel the misconception that women's work is a recent phenomenon, when in fact women have been working throughout history. The book also addresses the constant tension and multiple roles that women must manage. The lives of working women are indeed characterized by "split dreams": most women who work are constantly juggling their work and family dreams. It is therefore misleading to concentrate solely on the workplace when seeking to understand women's position at work. Rather, one must pay attention to the connections among societal institutions. To this end, the authors argue for and utilize a structural approach-one that examines the ways in which the economy, education, the family, and the polity reflect and influence one another and help reinforce women's subordination. Only when these connections are brought to light is it possible to begin to formulate alternatives to conventional ideas concerning work, family, and gender roles.The authors begin by situating their research in opposition to dominant sociological models of work. They then provide a thorough historical overview of women at work, carefully examining the diversity of women's experiences by race, ethnicity, class, and age. Economic, legal, political, familial, and educational institutions are also analyzed to show the ways in which they help produce and maintain inequality for women in the workplace. Working Women in America: Split Dreams intersperses first-person accounts throughout the book and provides a number of vignettes of women employed in a variety of occupations. It is an ideal text for courses in women's studies, sociology, economics, social work, and history, and fascinating reading for anyone interested in women and their work. ... Read more

Book Description

In a panoramic study that draws on diverse sources, Jerry Jacobs and Kathleen Gerson explain why and how time pressures have emerged and what we can do to alleviate them. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that all Americans are overworked, they show that time itself has become a form of social inequality that is dividing Americans in new ways--between the overworked and the underemployed, women and men, parents and non-parents. They piece together a compelling story of the increasing mismatch between our economic system and the needs of American families, sorting out important trends such as the rise of demanding jobs and the emergence of new pressures on dual earner families and single parents.

Comparing American workers with their European peers, Jacobs and Gerson also find that policies that are simultaneously family-friendly and gender equitable are not fully realized in any of the countries they examine. As a consequence, they argue that the United States needs to forge a new set of solutions that offer American workers new ways to integrate work and family life.

Book Description

The backlash against outsourcing American jobs to countries like India had transformed into an anti-immigrant and anti-Indian atmosphere lately. While looking at outsourcing and high-tech visa programs from a completely different angle --and giving an enjoyable account of Indian programmers -- this book answers, in an extremely balanced way, the following complicated questions that have been raised by many American programmers, talkshow hosts, news anchors and politicians:

. If outsourcing is inevitable, what’s next for Americans?

· Did America really benefit from immigrant programmers?

· Was there never a need to bring immigrant programmers to the U.S.?

· Are Indian immigrant programmers nothing but corporate lapdogs?

· Are Indian programmers dumb as rocks and incapable of thinking outside of the box?

· Did Indian immigrant programmers support the September 11th attacks?

· Did Americans invent everything that belongs to the computer industry?

· Is the Indian education system far below world standards?

· Is there an organized Indian mafia in American universities that hires only Indian cronies? ... Read more

Book Description

This book moves the discussion of affirmative action beyond the United States to other countries that have had similar policies, often for a longer time than Americans have.It also moves the discussion beyond the theories, principles, and laws that have been so often debated to the actual empirical consequences of affirmative action in the United States and in India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Both common patterns and national differences are examined.Much of what emerges from a factual examination of these policies flatly contradicts much of what was expected and much of what has been claimed. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

The unintended consequences of affirmative action
Thomas Sowell presents the results of his research of investigating affirmative action in various countries around the world. He looks at what really happens after affirmative programs are implemented, as opposed to the claims of what would happen. He finds there have been horrible costs from affirmative action programs.

There is a saying: "In theory there is no difference between theory and reality. In reality there is." Thomas Sowell shows the reader how the reality of affirmative action is greatly different from the theory.

The bulk of the book focuses on five countries; there is a chapter on each of the following: India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and the United States. In each of these chapters there is a brief overview, the historical setting, a detailed analysis of the types of quotas & preferences various groups got, an examination of what happened, and then some conclusions.

Again and again I would think of the Law of Unintended Consequences, for as Thomas Sowell points out that (especially in dealing with humans) you can not always predict the outcome of a particular action. One of Thomas Sowell's points is those who have been pushing for affirmative action have a very, very poor track record in being able to predict how the affirmative action programs will help. They will make great claims, but the reality has been very different.

Thomas Sowell finds there are some basic patterns in all of the affirmative action programs. Almost always the programs are promoted as being temporary, but they become permanent. The programs are supposed to be for a specific group, but other groups push for their cause to try and join the bandwagon (gravy wagon). Often those who are suppose to be getting the benefit miss out; a recent example in the United States has been the news that the blacks getting into Harvard are not the decedents of those who were slaves in the United States. Also the groups "needing" help were often doing better before the affirmative action programs than after the programs. He makes the point that there have always been differences in how various groups succeed, for example the Japanese suffered in the United States during World War II, and even more in Canada, yet they are very successful today. And groups that were doing well a hundred years ago aren't always the most successful today.

Thomas Sowell documents how the costs of affirmative action programs have been heavy. The relationships between the various groups get worse because of resentment and a sense of injustice. For example if 100 students for the "favored" group are admitted to a university, then the 800 who don't get in tend to be a bit hostile to the favored group. There have been race riots, and even civil wars. There has been an overall lost to society, as those that are favored tend not to try as hard because they have an edge, while the rest tend to give up because they don't have the extra help.

This is a good book. It is well documented and very thoughtful. Thomas Sowell makes a strong, convincing, argument that we shouldn't have affirmative action programs. If you are interested in the subject of affirmative action, this is a good book to read.

Thomas Sowell>>>>>>God
As anyone who regularly reads Thomas Sowell's syndicated columns knows, he's long been one of America's most prominent dissident voices, black or white, approaching every subject he addresses with relentless reason and thorough research. With his latest book, "Affirmative Action Around the World," Sowell jumps right into the debate over one of the world's most controversial subjects: ethnic preference programs. Of course, we all know about Affirmative Action here in the U.S., but as Sowell demonstrates, similar programs can be found in countries all over the world. With his trademark honesty and meticulousness, Sowell explores the results of affirmative action policies in five countries: the United States, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. This book echoes many of the themes found in Sowell's classic "The Vision of the Anointed," so you may want to check out that book before moving on to this one.

As Sowell states many times throughout the book, his main objective here is to examine the actual effects of affirmative action programs, not the goals or rationales behind them. To put it another way, he sets out to answer the questions that most people don't even ask. The chief problem, in Sowell's view, is that the assumption underlying affirmative action programs is fundamentally flawed. It's just assumed by those advocating such measures that any intergroup disparities in performance must be caused by some sort of systematic discrimination, and a little government intervention is needed to even things out. However, as Sowell notes, such differences have been found all over the world all through history. In virtually any country, a statistically significant group of Chinese, Japanese, or Jewish people will out-earn the majority population, even though they typically have little to no political power. It's been the same with other groups in other countries, regardless of whether they were in any position to discriminate against anybody. It's gotten so ridiculous that in Canada, citizens of Japanese descent have been referred to as a "privileged" group, even though they're a tiny percentage of the population and have suffered horrendous treatment there.

Another major flaw Sowell points out is that proponents of group-preference policies see the whole matter as a zero-sum game, where some of the benefits that one group has "unfairly" gained can simply be taken and given to another group. However, these people, whose mindset you can read all about in "The Vision of the Anointed," fail to account for all the unintended consequences that such policies can produce. Race relations can become frayed as coercion replaces cooperation (as they have in America), members of newly disadvantaged groups can leave the country and take their money and skills with them (Malaysia), and ethnic violence and even civil war can break out (India and Sri Lanka). Even worse, if governments were to stay out of the way, everyone could benefit, as in the 1940's and '50's in this country when white income rose and black income rose even faster with no affirmative action. Instead, government meddling often turns what could be a positive-sum game into a negative-sum one.

Perhaps most disastrously of all, once set in motion group-preference policies tend to take on a life of their own. In all five of the countries Sowell discusses, affirmative action programs are supposed to be in effect for a limited time and cover a limited group of people, but they eventually take on a life of their own as the demands of the privileged groups become ever more radical. In many countries these policies have come to cover more and more groups, often being expanded to more than half the population and always being extended past any timetable set for their expiration. And in all cases, the more privileged members of the preferred groups have reaped almost all of the benefits. This is another theme Sowell covers in "The Vision of the Anointed": the people who set these policies in motion may mean well, but in believing they can control the course of the events they've set in motion they assume more knowledge than anyone has ever had anywhere.

I think the main lesson to be taken from this book is that multi-ethnic societies *can* work, but not with a powerful central government distributing benefits in what essentially amounts to a racial spoils system. In the kind of free-market society advocated by libertarians, where people are free to associate with whomever they see fit, racial tensions could be defused or at least minimized even if there are large disparities in achievement between different groups. As Sowell notes, there have always been achievement gaps in various countries the world over, but these gaps typically don't lead to major tensions or violence until they're politicized by demagogues who stand to gain from encouraging strife (think Jesse Jackson). It's just too bad more people, regardless of race, don't listen to voices of reason like Sowell.

The Invidious Undermining of Freedom
Proponents of affirmative action support it with various arguments: it is a temporary and limited program designed to right historic wrongs; it is a program by which equalities based on racism are balanced out; it helps those least fortunate in society; it eases ethnic/racial tensions. Thomas Sowell's study of several affirmative action programs around the world shows how little evidence there is to support these arguments.

Sowell mentions numerous affirmative action programs throughout the book, but his primary focus is on the programs developed in five countries: India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and the United States. While he admits that it's difficult to separate the different underlying factors influencing any outcome, he does a remarkable job showing to the satisfaction of any reasonable person how the outcomes of affirmative action policies are often contrary to what their proponents intended. His cross-national survey reinforces that point by demonstrating how these same unintended outcomes occur in different countries that share little else in common.

Contrary to arguments that affirmative action programs are limited in scope and duration, Sowell gives examples of how they expand and endure. India has had an affirmative action program for longer than any other nation, and though it was originally designed to be limited in time (20 years) and scope (mainly untouchables and other similarly disadvantaged "backward classes"), it has now ballooned to encompass numerous other groups of people over numerous extensions of time.

Contrary to arguments that the programs help correct inequalities based on racism, Sowell shows that inequalities among ethnicities in chosen professions and educational performance are the norm all around the world, and not proof of underlying racism. Malaysia's Chinese, despite their lack of political power, disproportionately outdo the Malays in academic performance and professional representation. And this comes more than thirty years after the Chinese were targeted by the implementation of what may be the most successful affirmative action program in the world, a booming economy that lifted the living standards of all major ethnic groups, and Malay political leaders sifting through the country for qualified Malays to fill professional and academic positions.

Contrary to the arguments that the programs would help those in society from the most unfortunate backgrounds, affirmative action mostly helps those individuals in a particular group who need it the least. In the United States, middle- and upper-class Blacks and Hispanics are often the prime beneficiaries of government-mandated employment programs and government contracts for businesses awarded to minorities. Most tellingly, Blacks did far better removing themselves from poverty during the pre-affirmative action era than they have done since its implementation.

Finally, in probably the most damning indictment of affirmative action, contrary to arguments that ethnic/racial tensions are eased by such programs, it appears the exact opposite often occurs. In Sri Lanka, the implementation of a language policy for one ethnic group (which in turn would help it secure jobs for its members), led to a deadly and long-lasting civil war in a country which had once been thought one of the most promising in the developing world. India has also suffered violent ethnic flare-ups by groups seeking to either maintain or expand the preferential policies favoring them.

Affirmative action assumes the government has the wherewithal to identify and correct historic wrongs committed against specific groups, because freedom and neutral policies cannot bridge that gap. But Sowell's study shows that governments do not have that wherewithal, and that some gaps between groups are natural and to be expected. His book is a powerful antidote against this invidious undermining of freedom.

Better than some of his other books, but still rubbish.
I am constantly bewildered by Sowell and his ilk - extremely well educated and qualified (you'd think), yet at the same time narrow minded and shockingly ill-informed. This book, 'Affirmative Action...', is so full of glaring inaccuracies that I found it difficult to understand. Sowell blames the vast majority of instabilities within developing nations on 'racial bias' or 'ethnic favouritism'. Did this guy actually ever attend high school? Or did he just skip history lessons and ignore current affairs for the past 50 years? All of the classic knock-on effects of colonialism - ethnic, racial or religiously-motivated violence in Sri Lanka, India / Kashmir, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Somalia - have resulted from countries being carved-up by the UK, France, Holland, Spain on their exit, in what was always an ill-advised, hurried and poorly planned stab at racial harmony through segregation, resulting in perpetual conflict over lands and resources. This has been documented, studied, poured over and universally accepted for decades, yet Sowell has decided that it is his right to try to rewrite history. Does he deny the holocaust too? And don't get me started on his extremely ignorant views on black history and culture... this man has no concept of his own heritage.

An arrogant, pompous piece of extremeist drivel. This man should be locked up.

Affirmative Action: Global Genocide
It is rare to find someone with the courage to even hint at the fact that Affirmative Action is not the cornucopia for all the social ills in the world, but Thomas Sowell does just that in this inciteful book. By focusing on the effects that Affirmative Action has had on society and economies, rather than offering political and black supremacist rhetoric in its defence, this work has the potential to open the worlds eyes to one of the last bastions of racism - Affirmative Action.
However, if one is going to examine the effects of Affirmative Action around the globe,its application in African countries must not be neglected .This the author unfortunately does.
The most insidious application of Affirmative Action, a.k.a Affirmative Discrimination, is currently being applied in South Africa by the racist ANC government against South Africa's defenseless white youth. Using an apartheid style,divide to rule, strategy the ANC has united all non-white ethnic groupings against a common enemy - whites(non-blacks).This hapless minority targeted for discrimination, is parred down even further, as specified in the racist Employment Equity Act, to white males in particular(also euphemistically refered to as "non-designated groupings")
Prehaps Mr. Sowell has excluded mentioning Africa as,after only ten years of racial oppression, the effects of the ANC regimes's racial engineering programme have not fully been manifested.The world can still turn a blind eye to the suffering of South Africa's white youth who have no hope of casting off the Affirmative Action yoke, which is being tightened ever more vigorously by ANC racial zealots.
However this is not the case in Zimbabwe. This country is THE prime example of the consequences of the application of Affirmative Discrimination against an ethnic minority.Zimbabwe claims to have the created the largest black intelligensia in the world by applying Affirmative racial engineering.What is now patently obvious is that the same political and idealogical reasoning which justifys racial discrimination or "preference" by the state, for or against a particular ethnic grouping, is the same one which resulted in such attrocities as apartheid and the Jewish holocast.
What is the end result of Affirmative Action? Look to Zimbabwe. ... Read more

Book Description

Novelist Barbara Kingsolver began her writing career with Holding the Line. It is the story of how women's lives were transformed by an eighteen-month strike against the Phelps-Dodge Copper Corporation. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, the story is partly oral history and partly social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment which occurs when people work together as a community. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Women on the picket line and its impact on their lives
Barbara Kingsolver was a young reporter in Arizona when she was assigned to write a story about this strike. Little did she know then that the strike would last for eighteen months, and that this book would be a natural outgrowth of her interest. The book is filled with facts and figures as well as the stories of people who bravely "held the line" each day, picketing against the "scab" workers that were brought in by the Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation. It's also the story of a town, where the only work was in the mine. And it's also about the generations of Mexican American citizens of that town who had to fight prejudice as well as the everyday dangers inherent in mining.

Most of all though, it is the story of the women and how this strike broadened their understanding of the world beyond their families, and let them develop new strengths. For it was mostly the women who stood on that picket line - the wives, sisters and mothers of the men who would have been arrested. Families were threatened with eviction. There was even a catastrophic flood during this time, which brought its own kind of devastation. And some of the women were arrested too. But despite intimidation, tear gas and harassment, the community stood firm.

I was particularly interested in the stories of the handful of women who actually worked in the mine. One of them had 11 children but needed the work to be able to help her husband support the family. Eight dollars an hour doesn't seem like much, but it was considered a good wage compared with $3.00 an hour for being a secretary. Several of them described the actual work, including the heavy lifting all day long and sometimes working as many as 28 days in a row. Their male co-workers verbally harassed them. And there was no special restroom for women. Eventually though, they won respect.

But when the corporation wanted to cut wages and eliminate even a cost-of-living increase, the strike started. It went on and on. Ms. Kingsolver goes into all the details. It was fascinating. It was if I was just picked up from my New York City apartment and plunked down on the picket line of a little town that had less people than one apartment building on my block.

The eventual result wasn't very good for anybody though. Not in the usual sense. But by the time the author gives her own spin on the situation, including her feminist politics, I was left with a positive feeling, as was her intention. I learned things from this book. I learned about a copper mine in Arizona, the actual jobs and the people who worked there. I learned about the large and imperfect system of unions in this country. And, most of all, I learned about the strength and courage of a few special women.

Please
If you expect anything even approaching an objective and truthful retelling or analysis of the Phelps Dodge strike, you'll be sadly disappointed. Kingsolver picks a series of unsubstantiated and self-interested stories of the strikers and completely ignores the horrible violence committed by the unions.

...

Amazing writing about a horrific event
Barbara Kingsolver is one of the, if not the, greatest writers ever produced by America, maybe, the world. With care and compassion, she writes a thorough account of the mine strike of 1983 in Southern Arizona. During the height of the Cold War, while Reagan was calling the Soviet Union and Communism, the "evil empire," things which Americans thought went on "only over there" were happening in Southern Arizona. Hard-working people who did no more than stand up for there rights, were denied their right to assemble, to speak, to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Judges, Governor Bruce Babbitt, Department of Public Safety, the National Guard, and the local authorities, all in the pocket and payroll of Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation who was trying to break up the Unions, so they could re-institute racist, sexist, classist, policies.

They all failed. The Morenci Mine Women's Auxiliary led the way to community solidarity against all odds. More than any strike victory, they gained, life, confidence, and a purpose in life. Read this book, it's told in the form of interviews and narrative. You'll get to know and have affection for Anna O'Leary, Flossie Navarro, Berta Chavez, and many other women of Clifton, Arizona. You'll root for them, be inspired by them, and, be moved by them. What a wake up call! Working people of the world, UNITE!

Frightening
I will never view law enforcement or the judicial system the same way again. A real eye-opener for those with no experience with unions. The story of heros persuing the American dream...

This is one book that I had few regrets about
This book details the struggles of the women miners of Arizona. Their hardships were projected beautifuly by Barbara Kingsolver's use of descriptive words. Her often wild style threw me off a couple of times and her other work kind of worried me about the content of this book. I was pleasently surprised by "Holding the Line : Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983". ... Read more

Book Description

Today's workforce is experiencing job burnout in epidemic proportions. Workers at all levels, both white- and blue-collar, feel stressed out, insecure, misunderstood, undervalued, and alienated at their workplace. This original and important book debunks the common myth that when workers suffer job burnout they are solely responsible for their fatigue, anger, and don't give a damn attitude. The book clearly shows where the accountability often belongs. . . .squarely on the shoulders of the organization.

... Read more

Reviews (6)

A Good Read!
Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter's groundbreaking book debunks myths about burnout and holds organizations accountable for this epidemic, which has swept the work world. The authors detail how organizations can treat and prevent burnout, and take a critical look at its deep-rooted causes, including lack of engagement and conflict between employees' values and their jobs. Conversationally and with great impact, the authors support their points and suggestions. We recommend this book to executives, managers and employees. Now go home and get some rest.

A REAL CURE FOR A MODERN DAY PYCHOLOGICAL EPEDEMIC
In the Truth About Burnout Drs. Maslach and Leiter propose the first real cure for burnout and the key to releasing peak potential in the workforce.

Much of the past advice on the topic of burnout focuses on how to help people cope with burnout. These techniques are useful and come in handy, but unfortunately they do not position or fortify people to reach higher levels of performance. Simply treating the symptoms of burnout is like giving someone a medicine that provides temporary relief from external signs that they have a cold. After the medication wears off, they still have a virus raging through their body that's slowing them down. Likewise the "virus" that causes burnout is disengagement with work and no matter what temporary relief solution we provide to ease the pain, in the form of workshops on how to cope and "employee assistance programs" at the end of the day the "virus of disengagement" is still alive and well and impairing performance.

This book is for anyone manager or individual contributor who has decided to stop coping and "sugar-coating" and instead seek a real and practical solution to burnout. I highly recommend it.

Joe Santana,
Co-author Manage IT

Best resource!
I currently teach a graduate-level course on Burnout in the Helping Professions. This book serves as the "bible" on burnout and prevention strategies from both organizational and personal perspectives. Use it fopr academic purposes as well as personal reasons. You'll be glad you did!

the truth about burnout
I read this book in my local libary and found it very interesting. It also applies to government which have become infected with consultants and "reform" fads. Another good book was "The Witch Doctors, making sense of management gurus. WE already survived TQM, and now are going throug"reinvention" which was supposed to be all done in 3 to 5 years. Now 7 1/2 years later it takes 2x the number of people to do half the work in twice the time. This is is causing burnout in a lot of people. I'll buy the book when it comes out in paperback.

A Great Organizational Perspective
THE TRUTH ABOUT BURNOUT is that it is not an imperfection of the individual employee. Burn-out is a symptom of an organization in trouble.

Christina Maslach is Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and the creator of The Maslach Burnout Inventory. Michael P. Leiter is Dean of the Faculty at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The traditional perspective about burnout is that it is an individual problem. The natural solutions to this perspective focuses on providing courses on stress management, bringing in Employee Assistance Programs, and doing a better job of selecting in people who can handle stress.

The authors argue that these interventions are positive but incomplete.

If employee burnout really is a symptom of an organization in trouble, then the interventions need to be organizational in context. They begin by analyzing job-person fit from the following dimensions: workload, control, rewards, community, fairness, a! nd values. There is a case description of a 750 bed hospital which illustrates these concepts in practice.

As it stands, the book makes its case well and provides concrete suggestions. The Maslach Burnout Inventory would appear to be an excellent tool for use in organization development interventions. The authors clearly have a solid grasp of their subject.

The limitations of this book are that I don't think the authors provide a convincing case for CEOs to take employee burnout seriously.

For CEOs to take employee burnout as seriously as Maslach and Leiter would like, we think there needs to be some recognition at the Board of Directors level that this is an important issue.

In our work with Boards of Directors, we seldom see that recognition.

Future editions of THE TRUTH ABOUT BURNOUT would benefit from more discussion about how burnout effects share holder value. Only five pages out of 178 focus on how burnout impacts the financial performance of a company.

To ! get CEOs to take burnout seriously, the Compensation Commit! tee of Boards would have to add that a percentage of each CEO's bonus pay be determined by positive or negative deviation from some desired employee turn-over statistic or some desired customer satisfaction statistic.

As it currently stands in North America, few companies even bother to collect employee turnover and customer satisfaction statistics. Few companies bother to collect the true costs of recruiting/training new employees.

If it is not important enough for the Board of Directors to measure, then why should the CEO assume that it counts?

That's a problem we would love to see Maslach and Leiter address.

Fortunately for them, a model exists. When a Board is serious enough to count diversity as a component of a CEO's variable compensation, suddenly companies seem to take diversity seriously!

And if the Board does not count it important enough to be part of the variable compensation system, then the company is apt to engage in more talk and training than! action. ... Read more

Book Description

Focusing on equality in the workplace, this informative and empowering study offers a candid examination of women and the barriers they face as they enter the 21st century workforce environment, highlighting the challenges organizations and their employees face as well as offer new directions women can look to in managing their success.Offers valuable insight and expertise from a wide range of contributing authors, providing readers with a foundation for exploring the “glass ceiling”, analyzing women's experiences in the workplace, and identifying strategies for managing successful career. Addresses many pertinent issues, including gender and communication; the experience of women of color; dysempowerment in organizations; the legal system and discrimination laws; career path obstacles; the trend of international women managers; what women entrepreneurs must know; professional women as changing agents, and much more. Begins each section with interviews from some of today's most powerful and inspiring women leaders who share how they “broke through” and found success.For professionals in management and business. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Fifteen Experts Share Their Knowledge on a Fascinating Topic
Extremely thoughtful and extensive research on women's reality in today's business environment. The book covers a broad range of perspectives. Very informative and useful. Truly worth it! ... Read more

Book Description

In Limbo, award-winning journalist Alfred Lubrano identifies and describes an overlooked cultural phenomenon: the internal conflict within individuals raised in blue-collar homes, now living white-collar lives. These people often find that the values of the working class are not sufficient guidance to navigate the white-collar world, where unspoken rules reflect primarily upper-class values. Torn between the world they were raised in and the life they aspire too, they hover between worlds, not quite accepted in either. Himself the son of a Brooklyn bricklayer, Lubrano informs his account with personal experience and interviews with other professionals living in limbo. For millions of Americans, these stories will serve as familiar reminders of the struggles of achieving the American Dream. ... Read more

Reviews (32)

Striking a Cord
This book struck a cord with me and obviously strikes a cord with many readers. It is not a page turner in the sense ofa suspense novel, however, I did find myself looking forward to each reading. It is mostly a compilation of anecdotes and conclusions from anecdotes. There's little statisical or "scientific" data. Nevertheless, the individual stories are quite compelling.

The book focuses almost exclusively on first generation college/professional whites from working class/skilled laborbackgrounds. Most of these folks would be at least one economic class removed (higher income) than most working class minority families in that thier jobs appear to be in the heart of "blue-collardom", that is union jobs and similar skilled factory or labor wage work with relative employment stability.The success of the subjects is still remarkably laudable and certainly in thier eyes and in the eyes of the author, exceptional.

Particularly interesting were the discussions of familiy reluctance to "let go" of the subjects and family resistance to the subjects refusal to buy into their cultural/socio-economic inheritance. A little more insight into the conflicting feelings (if any) experienced by the parents (who might say something like "I want my kids to do better than me without thinking that they are better than me") would have added a nice balance. Unfortunatley, given the age of many of the subjects (approaching middle age) maybe many of the parents were no longer available to be interviewed.

Interesting also was the abscence, on the whole, of any larger social "make the world a better place" motivation on the part of the subjects. My thought is that this factor would play a much larger part in the motivation for similar class jumping minoritites. For these folks though it seemed to be all about "self actualization." Also missing was any discussion about them sharing financial burdens with thier "left behind" family members.This too would play a much larger part ina description of class changeover among minorities. More discussion of so-called racial minorities as subjects would have been an added strength but, maybe there's another book to be written in this regard.

This book would have benefitted from more statistical data in the manner of "Nickeled and Dimed" but it is more of a "voice" piece than an advocacy piece.Overall, it is well worth reading as an enlightening look at the ramifications of class jumping and the subtle and not so subtle subtexts to life in the class change over lane.

Deserves credit for raising the issue
First of all, what a great idea for a book. Reading it is a validating experience for someone who has moved up a social notch or two. It helps you identify and explore your own psychological dissonance from being stretched between two worlds. And I finished the book feeling better about it.

Now a couple of critiques: I agree with another reviewer that Lubrano paints the social classes in swaths that are way too broad. Families with yachts who have been wealthy for generations are not middle class or upper middle class or just "white collar." They are rich elites. And there are lots more of them in the Northeast, where Lubrano has lived, than there are elsewhere in the U.S.

And I think there is a tendency among bright people to rebel against the circumstances into which they were born regardless of class. That is, some white-collar born sons won't take over the family business or accept their share of the money, any more than Lubrano would have started laying concrete block. They probably experience the same kinds of feelings of displacement as blue-collars who ascend to the middle class. And this feeling is probably similar to that of second-generation children of immigrants -- it's about moving into a new culture.

Also, I think Lubrano over-universalizes his own experience. His family culture in Brooklyn as a working-class Italian-American kid was probably more different than a black kid's from South Georgia, for instance (or mine in suburban Atlanta) than he thinks. And for having interviewed 100 people, he keeps coming back to the same dozen or two over and over during the book.

But I sense that Lubrano wouldn't mind my critiques, since he accomplished what he sought to -- he made me think about what strong a role class schizophrenia has played in my life. You can quibble with the details, but the premise rings true.

Blue Collar Values Ring True
For those of you who saw John Turturro's semi-autobiographical movie "MAC," the scene where Mac stops his car to watch a bricklayer build a wall is a nutshell version of what the movie was about. Namely, the work ethic of the blue collar worker and taking pride in that work in a world where how one talks about work becomes more important than the work product. In Limbo, a virtual son of MAC winds his way through the maze of white collar upper class norms, performing a balancing act between improving his lot in life without betraying the values instilled in him by his family. Surely, the upper class "bobos" as some people call them don't spend any time considering things like "honoring" their family or the old neighborhood. Instead, these "chosen" ones lead a self centered life devoid of such self examination. Having never known despair, how could they? The author clearly demonstrates something that my family stressed to us, that its better to have a good life than an easy life. In my own life, I get angry with the people who give me the blank stares when I tell them I went through college on the G.I. bill. Not only do they and their family find this unimaginable, they don't know anyone in their family who ever has served in the military. That was for "other" people.Recently, there has been two bills introduced in the House that would bring back the draft. Only this time, there will be no student deferrments or marital deferrments. Ah, the panic amongst the middle and upper class begins. "Send my child to fight a war?" no way. Soon, the soccer moms will be crowding the highways on their way to war protests. The irony will escape them. Bobos in Paradise indeed.Limbo is a great book that should be a staple in every sociology 101 class in every college. Some self examination by college students will be good for them. A few years in the military wouldn't hurt either.

Uncovering the real causes of Social ills
Brilliant! A wonderful, skillfully written and insightful work that I'd recommend to anyone with two firing neurons.

It spoke eloquently and forcefully to my own semi-blue collar with white collar aspirations upbringing. More importantly, it described in excruiating detail with pinpoint accuracy what my own parents experienced as young adults in the 1950's through the 1970's. They were respectively, the 1st gen child of Northern Europeon immigrants [dad] and 2nd gen but raised by immigrants from Poland child [mom]. Both my parents worked strictly white collar jobs [note I did not write "careers"] until their early 40's then finally experienced financial success. They were viewed as "climbers" by their respective families, much to their dismay.

My dad was a senior salesman for a technical products manufacturer and mom a licensed interior designer. Neither had a college degree, which was not unusual back then. This meant they had not only glimpses of but meaningful interaction with the upper classes, always as the tolerated but not accepted "poorer couple". ha! My father drove a Lincoln most of his adult life, and they both scorned anything foreign in the auto category. We ate good "American" food, nothing "fancy" as they put it. Both had a genuine love of reading and passed that along to myself.

Despite knowing early on about class distinctions in this allegedly democratic meritocracy, I thank my parents for having the good common sense [in the 1960's-70's] to openly discuss class distinctions. While we lived in nice neighborhoods in Chicago, we didn't live above strictly middle-class. Vacations were always drive-aways to Wisconsin. If that. Later both moved up to become technically upper-middle income, but both retained all the values and views of having grown up in working class homes.

They passed that on to myself as their daughter. I've passed it on to my own son, now 25 years old. Who decided to drop out of college though he's a brilliant young guy with incredible artistic and technical skills [mostly self taught]. The best my husband and I could provide, as neither of us has completed a college degree, was a middle class lifestyle. We've had what I'd deem modest success given the lack of degrees, primarily because we're voracious readers, self educators and activists. It's true that we're often assumed to be well educated due to manner of speech, demeanor, interests, life-style, knowledge base and etiquette.

But I know what I am [pretender to the lifestyle!], who I came from and why. As does my glorified blue-collar spouse [general construction manager w/some college and industry training].

This book ably and meaningfully explores and exposes the outsider feelings and difficulties we Straddlers and our families experience not having grown up well-off and connnected. We both share many of the same experiences in work and private life that those interviewed in the book did. The vast class divide, outlined by other reviewers here.

I'm going to make sure my son reads this tome, as he's been faced with exactly the same form of invisible discrimination and classism though he's of a different generation and we've never been blue collar, though we are "just" working people with better vocabularies and tastes.

A Must Read for Teachers
Alfred Lubrano's book is a must read for teachers at all levels.He articulates the reasons why higher education can be challenging even for an intelligent student if they come from the working class.In a couple of his case studies, Lubrano describes Straddlers who had teachers confirm their low self esteem by suggesting they were not college material.Others were undoubtedly inspired and motivated by excellent teachers.It seems to me that a good teacher who is sensitive to the predicament of Straddlers can help their students bridge the enormous gap between their working class roots and the education and white collar careers to which they aspire.
Another point I took away from this book is one the author didn't overtly state but came out in some of the anecdotes: don't pretend class differences don't exist, but do have a sense of humor about it. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Tax credits, childcare benefits, school vouchers, flextime for parents, parental leaves--all have spawned what journalist Elinor Burkett calls a "culture of parental privilege." The Baby Boon charts the backlash against this movement and asks for a reevaluation of social policy. Burkett's cause isn't served by her sarcasm, which leads so easily to exaggeration and strained humor. She proposes, for example, that there exists an unwritten but widely understood "Ten Commandments of workplace etiquette in family-friendly America," which includes items such as "Thou shalt volunteer to work late so that mothers can leave at 2:00 p.m. to watch their sons play soccer" and "Thou shalt never ask for a long leave to write a book, travel, or fulfill thy heart's desire because no desire other than children could possibly be worth thy company's inconvenience." Burkett is more convincing when citing real-life examples, such as a legal secretary who applied for flextime and was told that benefit was available only to parents, or the case of Sarah, a childless travel agent in Seattle who invented a fake daughter, put her picture on her desk at work, and proceeded to take long lunches ("trips to the pediatrician") and leave work early for "family emergencies." Ironically, as Burkett describes, it was the search for equity that inspired the various pro-parent benefits of the "family-friendly workplace." A new attention to childless workers does seem to be in order--permitting them to substitute some benefits for others, for instance, or to receive bonuses instead, and to work in environments that support their choices not to have children. --Regina Marler ... Read more

Reviews (98)

An Island of Sanity
Burkett is thorough and eloquent in her detailing the illogical social trend of rewarding those who add to the number of people using our finite resources and punishing those who abstain from such behavior. If our pronatalist society continues to marginalize the childfree and treat them as second class citizens, those citizens will surely fight back. Let Burkett's book serve as a warning to the powers that be that one segmant of the population cannot be abused for the benefit of another segment. Most important points: 1. "Woman" and "mother" and not synonomous, and mother-friendly policies are not necessarily woman-friendly policies. 2. There is nothing *wrong* with people who choose not to produce offspring. 3. Tax benefits and other charitible motions should be focused on the poor, not the parents. There are poor both with and without children, as well as wealthy folk with and without children. Instead of giving advantages to everyone with children, the advantages should be given to everyone who is poor. That is, childed status does not determine need - income level does. That's the nutshell version anyhow. An excellent reminder to us all that all people deserve fair treatment regardless of their reproductive activities.

The child-burdened just don't get it...
Ms. Burkett's central thesis is not: "I don't want you to have any perks!" *whine whine*. It's: "The perks given are a bone thrown to keep parents complacent." Things like unpaid medical leave and tax breaks are viable benefits only for the middle and upper-middle classes. These benefits do little to actually offset the costs of childrearing. Thus, people think they're getting something for their "sacrifice", but it's ephemeral. The poor, who really need help feeding their children, much less buying them the latest toys, have nothing, especially with the current Welfare "reform". Tax breaks mean nothing to someone living below the poverty line, and the poor can't afford to take unpaid leave.

According to her research, "family-friendly" policies aren't keeping workers around and happy, either, which seems to indicate that my taxes aren't just subsidizing others' choices, but that it's a wasted subsidy.

I also find it interesting that my co-workers who pop a sprog are given weeks of leave for their contribution to society, and have a guaranteed job when they return. If I chose to head up North to one of the Reservations and help build a better medical clinic or school, I would not have a job guaranteed to me upon my return, even though I had just made a huge contribution to society.

Despite the anger of her book, which many threatened parents cannot see past, her point is clear: these benefits are not doing anything, just fostering senses of entitlement and resentment. I think new parents _should_ be able to take leave, but then so should I. I think parents _should_ be able to leave when their kids get sick, but then I should receive higher pay and faster promotions for taking up any slack. And we should stop feeling pressured to work 60 hours a week, no matter what our parenting status. The resentment myself and other childless/childfree workers feel is a symptom of a BIG problem, and Ms. Burkett's book is an important step towards finding the cure.

Parents deserve equal treatment, not priviledged treatment
Burkett did an excellent job of exposing the truth that family- friendly policies have little to do with helping children and more to do with cooing the votes of the baby boomers, the majority of which happen to have them. I believe that people should be able to pursue careers and be parents, but they have to figure out a way to make it work on their own. Parenting requires sacrifices that are the responsibility of those who choose to have the children. The decision to become a parent is a lifestyle choice. Everybody has to take responsibility for their choices. I believe in family policies that help the poor and low income families- if I knew my tax dollars were helping poor parents feed, clothe, and educate their children, I would have no complaints. But I detest the fact that I will continue to pay more in taxes than those who have exactly the same income as I do simply because they have children and I don't. I , like the author, am a feminist who believes in equal pay for equal work. All employees should get equal benefits which they have the ability to take advantage of whether they have children or not.

A feminist whines...
What a delightfully fiendish little book. On completing "The Baby Boon", I just had to run out and read the comments on Amazon. It never even dawned on me that people would even be allowed to think such politically incorrect thoughts about the spawners (I mean parents).

The book is vague enough, that different groups can take away whatever they want from the book. There is enough whining in the book, that the people who love all the special perks will be able to label it as feminist whining. The childless can find self validation, etc..

The book has many hidden gems. I was especially intrigued with the way that Bill Clinton sold out the traditional support base of the Democratic Party and bought the Baby Boom vote with the promise of special treatment for Baby Booming parents.

It is also interesting to see how quick Republican, who had been arguing for lower taxes and fiscal constraint, were willing to sell out when handed bags of special little perks.

If you are wondering. I happen to be childless. I was born at the end of the Baby Boom. My particular whine is that Reagan cancelled the scholarship program I needed to finish college. The government slashed spending on college education right after the boomers.

I borrowed heavily into my senior year. The loans gave out before my last quarter's tuition. My life is a simple equation of massive student loans and no degree. Consequently, the people I care about the most are students.

If the book really wanted to make an impact. It would have mentioned the great burden put on the youth of this nation by all the perks dished out today. Today's students are coming out of College in to a dreadful labor market with record setting college loans and credit card debt. The US is setting record deficits, and there is an expectation that our children will somehow make enough in their lives to pay the generous Social Security benefits that the Baby Boomers will demand while pay back the six trillion dollar deficit that the boomers ran up.

Responsible students put off children until they have their finances in order. So the tax breaks work against people hoping to start families. Many students today come out of college with $100,000 plus in credit card debt and loans. The perks hurt the responsible young students who work off their debt. As such, responsible graduates will put off children even longer.

The baby boomers tax grants aren't simply a transfer of wealth from the single to the married. It is a massive transfer of wealth and potential from young couple trying to get a toehold in the world to the established middle class. Ultimately, it is a tax that penalizes those who are responsible in planning for a family to those that drop kids without thinking.

I think "Baby Boon" is an important read because it shows us how the dialogue in American politics gets turned, spun and twisted until it is impossible to say which way is left or right. The only real conclusion is that mass transfers of wealth by the government has losers as well as winners. (We will always have whiners) Personally, I have no faith in the government's ability to decide which groups should be the winners and losers. The law of unintended consequences usually catch up with all government mandated wealth transfers.

More eloquent and persuasive than I ever could have hoped...
I've made a lot of the arguments in this book in casual conversation dozens of times. There is no right to have children, there is no right to have your personal choices subsidized by the state, government shouldn't favor some citizens over others, companies are being unfair when the give workers with kids more pay for the same work, etc. But never have I seen so many salient objections to the "child-friendly culture" put together with such excellent examples and research. Hopefully, with what I learned from reading this book, I'll actually have a shot at winning some of these arguments in the future. But I won't hold my breath, because as Burkett observes, people are unwilling to admit that they're wrong when they'd have to give up so many priveleges to do so. ... Read more

Book Description

Leading Minds and Landmark Ideas In An Easily Accessible Format

From the preeminent thinkers whose work has defined an entire field to the rising stars who will redefine the way we think about business, The Harvard Business Review Paperback Series delivers the fundamental information today's professionals need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world.

With articles ranging from an in-depth look at the "mommy-track" to perspectives on telecommuting, this book will help HR professionals and employees at all levels understand the oftentimes delicate balance between our professional and personal lives. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very good!!
Here we have a collection of several articles about balancing work and life. I liked the book because of that. You don't have to begin reading on page 1. Just see the index for an article of choice an begin reading there. The ideas the authors propose are written in an easy reading manner an are always backed on serious researches. I licked it a lot. ... Read more

Book Description

On a beautiful spring day, March 25, 1911, workers were preparing to leave the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village when a fire started. Within minutes it consumed the building's upper three stories. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside. The final toll was 146-123 of them women. It was the worst disaster in New York City history until September 11, 2001. Harrowing yet compulsively readable, Triangle is both a chronicle of the fire and a vibrant portrait of an entire age. Waves of Jewish and Italian immigrants inundated New York in the early years of the century, filling its slums and supplying its garment factories with cheap, mostly female labor. Protesting their Dickensian work conditions, forty thousand women bravely participated in a massive shirtwaist workers' strike that brought together an unlikely coalition of socialists, socialites, and suffragettes. Von Drehle orchestrates these events into a drama rich in suspense and filled with memorable characters. Most powerfully, he puts a human face on the men and women who died, and shows how the fire dramatically transformed politics and gave rise to urban liberalism. ... Read more

Reviews (36)

Good historical analysis
One of the questions my students always ask me is, "When did the Democratic and Republican Parties switch constituencies?" "Triangle: The Fire that Changed America" is a journalistic/historical hybrid of a book that gives a good answer to this question.
"Triangle" is a gripping book for most of its pages. It tells the story of the disastrous fire in a journalistic style that occasionally gets tedious but for the most part dramatizes and humanizes the event so as to make it more meaningful and interesting. Very often books written in this style sacrifice significance for drama and substance for style. However, Von Drehle does not do this. He carefully links the background of the fire to various progressive reformers and movements within the progressive movement. He goes from tenement houses to Fifth Avenue mansions. He further goes on to suggest that the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and the resulting political turmoil, is one cause of the shift of the Democratic party from a party that served its rural constituents and used its urban constituents to a party that actively challenged big business and pushed for urban reform. He connects Tammany Hall politics to the New Deal. He suggests that the fire did more than change the laws about fire safety; he suggests it paved the way for the Democratic coalition that would finally develop in the 1930s. His logic is compelling as is his book.

A Part of History most never knew of
Just off Wahsington Square the building still stands.A building seen by millions on a daily basis but so few know the tragidy that occured in this building now owned by NYU.A disaster that never should have happened. A fire and tragic loss of life that was completely proventable...yet it happened.This is a fantastic piece of history.Caused by the owners of the shirtwaste factory, their immigrant employees, young girls and women, worked as slaves in this time when labor laws were few if any.A major part of New York and U.S history.The aftermath was the beginning of labor laws that effect us today.No longer can you be locked in your building!That is just the start.

Good History Lesson---Good Read
I enjoyed this book very much though at times it drags a bit.It seems a little disjointed in places.I found it hard to follow the actual events that transpired with the actual fire----just my opinion.The political background was very interesting to me and probably the most intellectually beneficial part of the story.Some chapters were very gripping, some a bit tedious. The author draws, of course, on known information so sometimes there is more background on characters than I wanted---the lawyers for example----and less info in victims.

In all, it's a great book and a good read but be prepared to slog through some detail.

Chris

Reached peak early, then slowed down...
This was one of those books I've had in mind for years to read, but never got around to it until now. I wanted not just to read the sensationalism surrounding this horrific tale. I have not made it a habit to read all the disaster books. I've probably read 4 or 5. I tend to stick with epidemiology and disease, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic. But I read about this disaster over 28 years ago, when I worked as a librarian and had to shelve the books dealing with this. I only got a glimpse, but as I read more history it became clear that this was a fire that changed much in theU.S., and I wanted to know why this one specifically had an impact.

The fire itself and the situation both politically and socially surrounding it, are the very things that made me shake my head when people bring up how 'good' the 'good old days' were. Yeah, right...so it was great having people working horrible jobs at outrageous risk to themselves was great, just like having measles, mumps, and rubella was great when there were no vaccines. Makes me want to smack a few heads together when I hear things like this...

Drehle does a fairly good job in hi writing. He is a journalist, and has the background and can do the research. I appreciate his putting a face on the people who would otherwise remain unreal to the readers. But it makes it more excruciating when those people actually die in what you know must have been an awful way to go.

The books slows down after the fire and the initial outrage. The part about the changes made in politics, in the urban planning, and in society should have been more important than they came across as being. There was no extension as to what impact the Triangle had nationally...just a hint really. We know it changed NY law; did it change fire laws for other cities? We know some politicians made a lot of political hay from this, and went on to impact national politics. But I would have liked to have known more about the national implications of this fire. Was it reported nationally? How was it reported? Did it make any of the other textile people sit up and take notice? How? What happened to the many involved in the fire (not just the bosses)? Were there any others who returned to work for these same men, or did they just leave?

I had a lot of questions left for which there were no answers...an interesting book, more than a great one.

Karen Sadler

Excellent work of labor history
This is one of the best history books I've read in quite a while. To understand the importance of the Triangle Waist Company fire in labor history, it is also important to understand the context in which it occurred. I hadn't realized how the rise and fall of Tammany Hall was so intimately tied in with a business and political climate that would permit a situation in which such a deadly fire could occur, and also with the reformist aftermath, which was instrumental in leading to New Deal policies. The story of the trial, and the political maneuvering leading up to it, was fascinating.

Von Drehle is a fine writer. The most moving chapter must be the one he calls, "Three Minutes", referring to the fact that had the alarm been sounded three minutes sooner, many lives might have been saved. His descriptions of how many of the workers died had me in tears. While it is very easy to pile horror on horror, von Drehle shows you the people, both the survivors and the lost. There is one extraordinary section of this chapter in which, after telling of the people standing in the windows "cry[ing] 'fire!' because what else was there to say?", and the fire ladders not tall enough, and the watchers below "their tiny hands . . . up, as if a gesture could hold the doomed workers forever in the mouth of a furnace" he then describes the view from the windows. "[T]he cool, clear air beyond the furnace; the gray-brown tracery of bare trees quilting Washington Square (faintly washed with the first whisper of new green) . . .the birds starting from nearby eaves and wheeling through the sky; the elegant campanile of the church on the square, and the pleasing aesthetic echoes of it in the two orange brick loft building that faced the Asch Building . . .one of the least decorated in the neighborhood, [it] featured miniature terra-cotta columns, fluted in the classical style, as dividers between the upper-floor windows. Workers were clinging to these decorations now."

In 1913, two years after the fire, the New York State legislature passed a series of fire safety laws, including requiring automatic sprinklers in