Janesville: An American Story

(Paperback)

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Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Winner

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 downbut its 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 Prizewinning reporter Amy Goldstein spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin, where the nations 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 Americas biggest political issues. Her reporting takes the reader deep into the lives of autoworkers, educators, bankers, politicians, and job re-trainers to show why its so hard in the twenty-first century to recreate a healthy, prosperous working class.

Moving and magnificently well-researched...Janesville joins 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 Senior, The New York Times).

Anyone tempted to generalize about the American working class ought to meet the people in Janesville. The reporting behind this book is extraordinary and the storya stark, heartbreaking reminder that political ideologies have real consequencesis told with rare sympathy and insight (Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Soul of a New Machine).

Reviews

The most illuminating business book of the year.... If you really want to understand whats going on in todays real economy beyond the headlines about new stock-market highs, tax policy or the latest list of billionaires spend some time with this true tale.
Andrew Ross Sorkin,TheNew York Times
Janesville is haunting in part because its a success story....One is awed by the dignity and levelheadedness of its protagonists, who seem to represent the best of America.... Goldstein is a talented storyteller, and we root for her characters as, moment by moment, they try their hardest.
The New Yorker
A superb feat of reportage, Janesville combines a heart-rending account of the implications of the closing on GM workers and their families with a sobering analysis of the response of the public and private sectors. The book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the economy of the Rust Belt and its implications for Americas once-proud middle class.
ThePhiladelphia Inquirer
Weve been hearing a lot since the November 2016 election about the press missing The Story of a middle class losing ground, hope, and heart. But it turns out that Amy Goldstein, one of our finest reporters, was on it all along. Her vivid portrait of a quintessential American town in distress affirms Eudora Weltys claim that 'one place understood helps us understand all places better.'
Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prizewinning author ofCarry Me Home
Ms. Goldsteins book takes its place alongside those other essential tomes of the Trump era, J.D. Vances Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis and Joan Williams White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America.
Financial Times
Energetically reported and sympathetically narrated.... The story of ordinary people, how they cope or dont cope with a largely, though not entirely, unexpected economic disaster.
The Wall Street Journal
Goldstein gives the reader a gripping account of the GM layoff, the real loss it caused and the victims heroic resilience in adapting to that loss. By the end of this moving book, I wanted her to write a sequel on what might have been done to prevent the damage in the first place.
The Washington Post
Reflecting on the state of the white working class, J.D. VancesHillbilly Elegyfocuses on cultural decay and the individual, whereas Amy GoldsteinsJanesvilleemphasizes economic collapse and the community. To understand how we have gotten to Americas current malaise, both are essential reading.
Robert D. Putnam, New York Timesbestselling author ofBowling Alone and Our Kids
Goldstein provides a welcome addition to the conversation on the broken social contract. Janesville is a town like countless others, and this book offers a useful cautionary tale for public officials, sociologists, economists, and engaged citizens alike.
The Boston Globe
Janesvilleis as relevant to the moment as a breaking news bulletin. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand how the Great Recession and deindustrialization have disrupted social, economic and political life in the American heartland. If you want to know why 2016 happened, read this book.
E.J. Dionne, New York Timesbestselling author ofWhy the Right Went Wrong
The 2008 financial crisis is frequently reduced to a matter of statistics and graphs, which makes Goldsteins extensive reporting so valuable and, at times, moving.... By emphasizing the effects of economic collapse on family life, Goldsteins narrative doubles as a sort of generational saga: It humanizes the worst economic crisis of contemporary times by chronicling the enormous pressures it placed on several generations ofJanesville residents.
The Nation
Fair-minded and empathetic.... While it highlights many moments of resilience and acts of compassion, Amy Goldsteins Janesville: An American Story also has a tragic feel. It depicts the noble striving of men and women against overpowering forces in this case, economic ones.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Amy Goldstein was in the right place at the right time to help us understand why we no longer just get along. Having immersed herself in Paul Ryans idyllic hometown after its GM plant closed forever, she illuminates disrupted lives, marriages, and childhoods as the manufacturing and strong unions that built our modern middle class fadefracturing the community and breeding the political polarization that helped give rise to Donald Trump.
Sheldon Danziger, President of the Russell Sage Foundation and coauthor ofAmerica Unequal
Meticulously reported and researched... filled with startlingand disturbingfacts and figures.
The Denver Post
[Goldstein] shatters a lot of conventional wisdom.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Based on three years of probing interviews, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist Goldstein makes her literary debut with an engrossing investigation.... A simultaneously enlightening and disturbing look at working-class lives in America's heartland.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Goldstein's exhaustive, evenhanded study of the plight of America's working class through the lens of one emblematic community is deeply humane and deeply disturbing, timely and essential.
Library Journal(starred review)
Eminently accessible, instantly absorbable, Janesville is a story of economics lived.
The Keen Thinker(800-CEO-READS newsletter)

Author Bio

Amy Goldstein has been a staff writer for thirty years at The Washington Post, where much of her work has focused on social policy. Among her awards, she shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. She has been a fellow at Harvard University at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Janesville: An American Story is her first book. She lives in Washington, DC.