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Punching Out: One Year In A Closing Auto Plant (2011)

by Paul Clemens(Favorite Author)

3.32 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0385521154 (ISBN13: 9780385521154)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Doubleday

review 1: I'd feel like a douchebag if I gave this book less than 3 stars. It's a valid story that needs to be told, yet I found myself headachey and skimming large chunks of it. In ways this was just an overlong magazine article.Yes, I saw the clear irony of closing a plant, only to have its parts disassembled and brought to a plant that does the same exact work in Mexico. [Insert outsourcing rant here! I just wish that the Mexican workers made better wages and the companies had better environmental restrictions... all of the things that lead to outsourcing in the first place. It's less about HEY AMERICAN JOBS and more about why we can't treat workers fairly and the environment too all over the world.]It was hard for me to picture the giant machines discussed. I felt little sympath... morey for the car industry and really no nostalgia for its heyday. I was mad at Detroit for bad city planning and no economic diversification. I was mad at America for building a nation reliant on cars and oil but failing to make the best cars. I was, after all, reading this book on my daily subway commute. There are a ton of people introduced also to whom I didn't get attached... I'm not sure if it was the author's storytelling or my detachment from the automobile industry. It reality, I probably skimmed too much.
review 2: I can barely get through half this book. First of all, Clemens is not a story teller, he is a list maker. Second, the lists he makes describe very physical objects - photographs might have saved his story, yet he included only a few. The website for the book has a video and cache of images for the Budd factory that support the book incredibly well, but unless you think to look it up you'd never know.I do not recommend anyone reading this book - especially if they are a visual person. less

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