Barbara Ehrenreich.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001.
Book information: Publisher; Google Books, 2001 edition; Google Books, 2011 edition; Amazon.com; Book Webpage; Nickel and Dimed, Wikipedia.
Some Barbara Ehrenreich links:
Barbara Ehrenreich .com
Barbara Ehrenreich, Wikipedia
Barbara's Blog, but the most recent post is dated 09 August 2011.
Barbara Ehrenreich at MotherJones
Barbara Ehrenreich at The Nation
Barbara Ehrenreich and the "Nickel and Dimed" song in the film The American Ruling Class (2005):
Saturday, August 20, 2011
John Michael Greer, "The Twilight of Meaning"
I generally endorse the sentiments of the following articles, particularly the suggestion to pay more attention to books, music, whatever, older than yourself (after you have unplugged yourself from the U.S. propaganda system).
Lambert Strether, "How to replace popular culture with something worthwhile," Corrente, 20 August 2011.
Strether's article is mainly an extended quote from the following article:
John Michael Greer, "The Twilight of Meaning," The Archdruid Report, 17 August 2011.
Lambert Strether, "How to replace popular culture with something worthwhile," Corrente, 20 August 2011.
Strether's article is mainly an extended quote from the following article:
John Michael Greer, "The Twilight of Meaning," The Archdruid Report, 17 August 2011.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Yafa, Big Cotton (2005)
Stephen H. Yafa.
Big Cotton: How A Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map.
New York: Viking / Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 2005.
[Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Paperback edition re-titled:
Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber.
New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Stephen Yafa, author's website; book webpage at the author's website.
This book is a very limited introduction to some very large topics. The author is a journalist(?) who begins and ends the book with personal accounts of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he grew up in an economically depressed city from which the textile industry had fled long ago, and today a place where the National Park Service operates a park and museum complex on early Nineteenth Century industrialization (Lowell National Historical Park). In between, the author gives an introduction to the first industrial revolution in textile manufacturing in northern England (spinning jenny; spinning mule; water frame; James Hargreaves; Samuel Crompton; Richard Arkwright; Cromford Mill); early Nineteenth Century industrialization in the U.S. north east (Samuel Slater; Boston Associates; Francis Cabot Lowell; Boston Manufacturing Company; Paul Moody; Nathan Appleton; Waltham-Lowell system; Merrimack Manufacturing Company; Lowell, Mass.; Lowell Mill Girls; Amoskeag Manufacturing Company); the spread of the slavery-based cotton production system from the coastal south east U.S. westward during the first half of the Nineteenth Century; some discussion of the political economy of the slavery-based cotton exporting South (King Cotton) versus the industrializing North; Northern textile factory labor issues (the transition from native-born to more easily oppressed immigrant labor); Twentieth Century U.S. agricultural subsidies; clothing marketing; blue jeans.
However, the author has chosen a huge topic, or range of topics: the industrialization of textile manufacture; slavery and wage labor; domestic and international trade; economic growth and decline; deindustrialization; all of these topics unfold over time-scales of decades and centuries and in more places than just England and the United States. There is no way one person could adequately discuss these in one small book. The author, after describing the initial mechanical inventions that started the industrial revolution in England, focuses almost exclusively on the United States. He also indulges in a cheerleading nationalism, such pervasive nationalism that it affects his vocabulary: "we" experience or do things. Who are these unspecified "we" people? U.S. Americans, of course. So the book provides a very narrow and mostly historical look at the textile industry. There is little or no discussion of changes in the U.S. textile industry during the Twentieth Century (discussion on how and why the industry moved from the U.S. north to the U.S. south and then to other countries is absent). Therefore, despite its title, the book is wholly inadequate as a history of cotton; the book is not a history of an industry; not a history of one or a few firms; nor a history of technology. If one wants to understand the textile industry as it operates today and is likely to evolve in the near future, this book has very little to offer.
Big Cotton: How A Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map.
New York: Viking / Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 2005.
[Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Paperback edition re-titled:
Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber.
New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Stephen Yafa, author's website; book webpage at the author's website.
This book is a very limited introduction to some very large topics. The author is a journalist(?) who begins and ends the book with personal accounts of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he grew up in an economically depressed city from which the textile industry had fled long ago, and today a place where the National Park Service operates a park and museum complex on early Nineteenth Century industrialization (Lowell National Historical Park). In between, the author gives an introduction to the first industrial revolution in textile manufacturing in northern England (spinning jenny; spinning mule; water frame; James Hargreaves; Samuel Crompton; Richard Arkwright; Cromford Mill); early Nineteenth Century industrialization in the U.S. north east (Samuel Slater; Boston Associates; Francis Cabot Lowell; Boston Manufacturing Company; Paul Moody; Nathan Appleton; Waltham-Lowell system; Merrimack Manufacturing Company; Lowell, Mass.; Lowell Mill Girls; Amoskeag Manufacturing Company); the spread of the slavery-based cotton production system from the coastal south east U.S. westward during the first half of the Nineteenth Century; some discussion of the political economy of the slavery-based cotton exporting South (King Cotton) versus the industrializing North; Northern textile factory labor issues (the transition from native-born to more easily oppressed immigrant labor); Twentieth Century U.S. agricultural subsidies; clothing marketing; blue jeans.
However, the author has chosen a huge topic, or range of topics: the industrialization of textile manufacture; slavery and wage labor; domestic and international trade; economic growth and decline; deindustrialization; all of these topics unfold over time-scales of decades and centuries and in more places than just England and the United States. There is no way one person could adequately discuss these in one small book. The author, after describing the initial mechanical inventions that started the industrial revolution in England, focuses almost exclusively on the United States. He also indulges in a cheerleading nationalism, such pervasive nationalism that it affects his vocabulary: "we" experience or do things. Who are these unspecified "we" people? U.S. Americans, of course. So the book provides a very narrow and mostly historical look at the textile industry. There is little or no discussion of changes in the U.S. textile industry during the Twentieth Century (discussion on how and why the industry moved from the U.S. north to the U.S. south and then to other countries is absent). Therefore, despite its title, the book is wholly inadequate as a history of cotton; the book is not a history of an industry; not a history of one or a few firms; nor a history of technology. If one wants to understand the textile industry as it operates today and is likely to evolve in the near future, this book has very little to offer.
Friday, August 05, 2011
Fusfeld, The Rise & Repression of Radical Labor in the United States 1877-1918 (1980; 1992)
Daniel R. Fusfeld.
The Rise & Repression of Radical Labor in the United States 1877-1918.
Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1992.
Originally published in 1980.
Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.
Some other items by or about Daniel Fusfeld:
In Memoriam, Economics, University of Michigan.
Nancy E. Bertaux, "The Contributions of Daniel R. Fusfeld, Economist" in Borderlands of Economics: Essays in Honour of Daniel R. Fusfeld. Nahid Aslanbeigui & Young Back Choi, editors. London: Routledge, 1997.
Daniel R. Fusfeld. The Age of the Economist ninth edition. Prentice Hall (now Pearson Higher Education), 2001.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Borderlands of Economics: Essays in Honour of Daniel R. Fusfeld. Nahid Aslanbeigui & Young Back Choi, editors. London: Routledge, 1997.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Daniel R. Fusfeld & Timothy Bates. The Political Economy of the Urban Ghetto. Southern Illinois University Press, 1984.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Daniel R. Fusfeld. The Basic Economics of the Urban Racial Crisis. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
[Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Morris Bornstein & Daniel R. Fusfeld, editors. The Soviet Economy: A Book of Readings. Richard D. Irwin, 1962; 1966; 1970; 1974.
Daniel R. Fusfeld. The Economic Thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the New Deal. Columbia Univeristy Press, 1956.
[Google Books; Amazon.com.]
The Rise & Repression of Radical Labor in the United States 1877-1918.
Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1992.
Originally published in 1980.
Book information: Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.
Some other items by or about Daniel Fusfeld:
In Memoriam, Economics, University of Michigan.
Nancy E. Bertaux, "The Contributions of Daniel R. Fusfeld, Economist" in Borderlands of Economics: Essays in Honour of Daniel R. Fusfeld. Nahid Aslanbeigui & Young Back Choi, editors. London: Routledge, 1997.
Daniel R. Fusfeld. The Age of the Economist ninth edition. Prentice Hall (now Pearson Higher Education), 2001.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Borderlands of Economics: Essays in Honour of Daniel R. Fusfeld. Nahid Aslanbeigui & Young Back Choi, editors. London: Routledge, 1997.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Daniel R. Fusfeld & Timothy Bates. The Political Economy of the Urban Ghetto. Southern Illinois University Press, 1984.
[Publisher; Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Daniel R. Fusfeld. The Basic Economics of the Urban Racial Crisis. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
[Google Books; Amazon.com.]
Morris Bornstein & Daniel R. Fusfeld, editors. The Soviet Economy: A Book of Readings. Richard D. Irwin, 1962; 1966; 1970; 1974.
Daniel R. Fusfeld. The Economic Thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the New Deal. Columbia Univeristy Press, 1956.
[Google Books; Amazon.com.]
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