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Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - And Helped Save An American Town (2014)

by Beth Macy(Favorite Author)

3.94 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0316231436 (ISBN13: 9780316231435)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

review 1: I wanted to like this more than I did. Its about an American furniture factory owner - one of the Bassets (an apparently huge furniture company I had never heard of) - who decides to fight against the tide of outsourcing to China that decimates the industry in the 1990s, by filing an anti-dumping suit against his Chinese competitor. I was hoping it would bring to life globalization and its effects on American workers through the story of one man and his company. But I didn't find myself wanting to pick it up, and Im not exactly sure why. Partly it was because of the looooong backstory that the author goes into about the history of wood furniture in Virginia, and the many feuding parts of the Bassett family over generations - all stuff that someone else might find interesti... moreng, but not the reason I was interested in the book to start with. So I'm not saying its a terrible book, I just didnt love it.
review 2: A story of the twentieth century in America: the rise and fall of an American business sector. Author Beth Macy tells about the rise to wealth and power of the Bassett family: their ruthlessness and infighting; their kindnesses and passions. It’s the story of the factories (particularly furniture and textile) that employed many people, now left unemployed by off-shoring and without many resources. Well-researched and well-written, the book makes points from different views about globalization. Much of the book centers on John Bassett III (JB3) who fought to keep his factory open and in the U.S. He is a colorful character, crafty, cunning, likeable, unlikeable. Like his idol Winston Churchill, he will never give up. As of the publication of the book, his company employs over 700 people in the U.S. An interesting part of the book is when Macy gives the differing memories of white vs black workers. As often happens, the whites remember that the they treated black workers well, almost “like family.” Needless to say, the black workers have a different memory. Yes, they had steady jobs and were spared from working in the fields, but “treated like family”? Not even close. less

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