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9781322247144

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Boom, Bust, Exodus brings to life the human impact of global industrial change on the people who live with it. Chad Broughton combines a journalist's eye for color and the telling detail with a scholar's grasp of his subject and skill in putting it all into context. There are heroes here, but few villains. Rather, Broughton tells in vivid prose what happens-both to people and their cities-when industry is ripped up from the places where it has always been and transplanted to places that weren't ready for it. Broughton knows the territory. He went to see and to listen, and he understands what he saw and heard. The result is a classic of post-industrial scholarship. --Richard C. Longworth, author of Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism Chad Broughton has written a deeply-observed and nuanced account of one of the stories of our time: the migration of a once-thriving American factory over the border into Mexico. When he learns of Maytag's plans to shutter its refrigerator plant, a move decried by a young Senator Obama, Broughton begins a decade-long dive into the drama that envelops both Galesburg, Illinois, where townspeople are losing their $15.14-an-hour livelihood, and Reynosa, Mexico, where the same jobs will pay $1.10 and come with a cost. The results are both epic and surprising. The pitfalls of such a project are many, but Broughton avoids pity and screed, delivering a story that is beautifully detailed and rich in human and historic dimension. Most of us talk about a global economy with a vague sense of what that really means. With Boom, Bust, Exodus Broughton has defined it indelibly. --Ann Marie Lipinski, Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University Chad Broughton's Boom, Bust, Exodus is a beautifully written, humanistic portrayal of globalization as is lived on a day-to-day basis. Using production as a through line, Broughton takes us from the Midwest to the border to the Mexican interior and back, unsentimentally but empathetically delineating the human consequences of capital mobility in North America in the 21st century. --Leslie Salzinger, University of California, Berkeley, author of Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico's Global Factories Broughton has written a powerful indictment of corporate greed and poor public policy, balanced by a tribute to the perseverance of the working-class people of two nations... While most readers will be familiar with the growth of economic inequality in the U.S., Broughton's unflinching, empathetic account puts a human face to that idea. --Publishers Weekly

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Chad Broughton is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy Studies and Faculty Director of the Chicago Studies Program at the University of Chicago.

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