Janesville An American Story [Paperback]

*Financial Timesand McKinsey Business Book of the Year *Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize​ *800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year* ANew York TimesNotable Book* AWashington PostNotable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * AWall Street JournalBest Book of 2017 * AnEconomistBest Book of 2017 * ABusiness InsiderBest Book of 2017 *

“A gripping story of psychological defeat and resilience” (Bob Woodward,The Washington Post)—an intimate account of the fallout from the closing of a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, and a larger story of the hollowing of the American middle class.

This is the story of what happens to an industrial town in the American heartland when its main factory shuts down—but it’s not the familiar tale. Most observers record the immediate shock of vanished jobs, but few stay around long enough to notice what happens next when a community with a can-do spirit tries to pick itself up.

Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nation’s oldest operating General Motors assembly plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession. Now, with intelligence, sympathy, and insight into what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval, Goldstein shows the consequences of one of America’s biggest political issues. Her reporting takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why it’s so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class.

“Moving and magnificently well-researched...Janesvillejoins a growing family of books about the evisceration of the working class in the United States. What sets it apart is the sophistication of its storytelling and analysis” (Jennifer SeniolP