"A devastating read... For anyone wondering why swing-state America voted against the establishment in 2016, Mr. Alexander supplies plenty of answers." - The Wall Street Journal
Brian Alexander is an award-winning journalist and author who has written about American culture for decades. He grew up in Lancaster, with a family history in the glass business.
"If you want to understand the despair that grips so much of this
country, and the love of place that gives so many the strength to
keep going, Glass House is a place to start."
--Christian Science Monitor "There are some books that I think of
as 'wake-up calls.' I'm talking about books that not only tell me
something I don't know, but that challenge and reconfigure a
previously held belief, allowing me to see the world I live in with
greater clarity and understanding...Glass House reveals that the
Anchor Hocking Glass Co. of Lancaster, Ohio, wasn't done in by the
forces of globalization, but by private equity investors from Wall
Street who drained the lifeblood from the company like a bunch of
vampires, profiting mightily in the process."
--John Warner, Chicago Tribune "Glass House is among the best of
the books to hit shelves in the last several years exploring what's
happened to the nation and the role that greed and the collapse of
once solid institutions played in the demise of small-town,
middle-class America. Among the others are George Packer's The
Unwinding and J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy."
--Newsweek "A masterful detailing of the brokenness of the
venture-capital-rooted economy. This is my favorite out of all the
books I read in 2017."
--This Appalachia Life "A valuable contribution...Lays out a
step-by-step account of Anchor Hocking's slide, benefitting not
only from Alexander's strong reporting, but from candid interviews
with key players. What is revealed is a complex system - Alexander
argues it is deliberately complex - that allows savvy investors to
make relatively small, highly leveraged bets on companies like
Anchor Hocking."
--Forbes "Gripping...There are those who argue that leveraged
acquisitions and restructurings of the sort that Anchor Hocking has
endured make companies more efficient and steer capital to better
uses...Alexander makes a persuasive case, though, that from the
perspective of Lancaster, it's been one big fleecing."
--Bloomberg Businessweek "For those still trying to fathom why the
land of the free and the home of the brave opted for a crass,
vituperative huckster with an unwavering fondness for alternative
facts instead of the flawed oligarch Democrats served up, Brian
Alexander has a story for you."
--The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "A field study looking at the
declining fortunes of the industrial city of Lancaster, Ohio."
--The Toronto Star "This well-reported book is all the stronger
given the author's connection to it: Lancaster is Alexander's
hometown. Shades of JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy."
--The New York Post "It's the book Hillbilly Elegy should have
been. It's unsettling and unforgiving, but so is its subject."
--Matt Reed, Inside Higher Ed
"An examination of a town in Ohio that quite literally fell apart.
From drug dealers to cops, from industry to finance, Alexander goes
deep into the heart of what ails us and takes no prisoners."
--Newsweek's "The Week in Reading" "Alexander tells a riveting
story."
--The Rotarian "If you liked Hillbilly Elegy, this should be next
on your list."
--The Oklahoman "Provocative."
--The Columbus Dispatch "Shows in fine-grained detail how the
American dream of opportunity and fairness died in Lancaster and in
similar towns all across the middle of the country...Glass House
has the style and structure of a grand panoramic novel as Alexander
follows a cast of characters located in every strata of Lancaster
society."
--Sojourners "Powerful."
--The Australian ""Remarkable...paints a vivid picture of the
downward spiral of the white working class."
--William Lazonick, Cornell University ILR Review "Alexander sheds
light on how white, working-class Americans came to lose faith in
the institutions of our democracy and in the basic social
contract."
--Ruth Conniff, The Progressive "Alexander deftly shows how
Lancaster represents the collapse of the American dream in
microcosm. The other Ohio. The other America. No New Deal awaits
them. Their predicament is not covered on the evening news. But
they have Trump."
--Inequality.org "A well documented examination of how this once
flourishing Ohio town became something else altogether."
--Dayton Daily News "A particularly timely read for our tumultuous
and divisive era."
--Publishers Weekly "A devastating and illuminating book that shows
how a city and a country got where they are and how difficult it
can be to reverse course."
--Kirkus Reviews (Starred review) "[An] essential book to
understand American reality and politics."
--The Washington Book Review "Offers insights into how economic
trends are tied to the financial and health problems plaguing many
middle- and low-income Americans."
--CBS News "Brian Alexander's moving new book Glass House explores
how the undermining by venture capital of once-enviable factory
jobs in Lancaster, Ohio, has nearly killed that once-thriving town.
You could write the same book about half of the country."
--Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune "An extraordinary book."
--Vick Mickunas, Book Nook, WYSO, Miami Valley "Emotionally
striking...Alexander has combined his considerable journalistic
talent with love for his broken hometown, producing an incredible,
unshaking look at the true story of the American working
class."
--Booklist "[Alexander] moves the story along with the force of a
novel, interweaving the saga of the business itself with the lives
of four friends."
--Economic Principals "Dramatizes vividly how a half-century of
economic 'progress' dismantled America's once-sturdy middle
class... Alexander personalizes this familiar story in a
compelling, often surprising, and utterly heartbreaking way."
--Timothy Noah, author of The Great Divergence: America's Growing
Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It "Glass House reads
more like a great novel... a fascinating, multi-layered, and
superbly written account of how politics, corporate greed, low
wages, and the recent heroin epidemic have nearly destroyed a once
prosperous Midwestern city. This is a must read for anyone
interested in really understanding the anger and frustration of
blue collar workers and the middle class in America today."
--Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Heavenly Table and The Devil
All the Time "Glass House is a compelling and harrowing look at the
corrosion of the social and economic institutions that once held us
all together, from the corporate boardroom to the factory floor.
It's the most heartbreaking tale of a city since Mike Davis's City
of Quartz."
--Victor Fleischer, Professor of Law, University of San Diego, and
New York Times columnist
"A compassionate but clear-eyed description of how
deindustrialization, financial speculation, union-busting and
deregulation undermined the social fabric of Alexander's home town,
illustrated with gripping personal stories."
--Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American
Families and the Nostalgia Trap
"An extraordinarily important book...Please, read Glass House. Read
it especially if you read Hillbilly Elegy... a smart, sensible,
approachable and eye-opening book that treats a complex topic with
necessary sophistication while treating the real human beings at
its center with the respect they deserve."
--Craig Calcaterra
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
