Not that I've read a lot of books about labor law, but this is the most well-written book about the experience of practicing labor law I've ever read, a sort of ground-level counterpart to the labor-market sections of Krugman's book. I once read an Amazon review for another one of Geoghegan's books that claimed that all of his books were really about citizenship in one form or another, and I agree with that. This one focuses on the damage that conservative policies did to the traditional American understanding of citizenship during the 1980s, specifically that of the Chicagoland union members that were being fired in droves as structural shifts in the economy (both natural and planned) eliminated their jobs and their places in society under the guise of the "invisible hand" while the corporations who cheerfully outsourced their jobs made huge profits. Geoghegan is witty and self-deprecating as he recognizes the futility of reversing or even slowing the massive hemorrhaging of jobs, and he pulls no punches in recounting the resulting ugly fratricide as these desperate unions relentlessly and inscrutably destroyed themselves as they lost everything they had. Somehow I ended up reading a lot of anti-Reagan books this year, and this was the second-most vitriolic out of the lot. ( )

Not his best; though perhaps i'm just getting tired of his stuff. ( )

I'm kind of ambivalent about this book. We're reading it for a class, and I really vacillate from one chapter to the next on whether I find this book helpful or not.

Geoghegan is definitely aware of his class privilege, so when starting out, I assumed he was equally aware of his race and gender privilege. He pokes fun at himself regarding the class privilege, and obviously struggles with his apparently conflicting desires to live comfortably while representing those who cannot afford the same comforts. His voice is often wry and sarcastic, which works since he's attempting to appeal to a reader on the same "class" level as him -- he's not trying to convince the union/ labor worker that unions are necessary, he's trying to convince the banker/ lawyer/ white collar worker.

As such, he doesn't really ever outright commit to a view -- as a white collar labor lawyer representing the blue-collar laborer, you'd think he would. But he doesn't. He gets close, then backs away. His ambivalence forces the reader to examine their own preconceptions and determine their own answer to the question: Which side are you on?

Geoghegan refuses to spoon-feed his reader the answer. This strength of his writing is also, unfortunately, it's major failing. His wry, sarcastic, and often self-mocking tone; his refusal to commit to a solid answer -- while both of these do well in forcing a white-collar, middle-class male to assess his the situation, it's a less successful tactic for women and minorities.

I don't think Geoghegan meant to write almost completely to white men, and I don't think he's racist or sexist. I think this is just a textbook (hah!) example of white male privilege, and in this particular book, his lack of awareness about said privileges negatively impacted his very real irony in assessing his class privilege.

It's hard to know when he's joking and when he's serious when he unself-consciously makes a statement about how racism impacted him (he's discussing a black labor leader he supported, and talks about how people would refer to said leader by the "n-word" (he types it out) in his hearing just to "see what his reaction was." By his own accounting, his reaction appeared to be silence.), and then he follows that up with a joke about his reaction to a class difference. It makes it hard to differentiate between when he's joking and when he's seriously just clueless, and (as noted) this negatively impacts the entire tone and voice of the book.

As I said, I do not believe Geoghegan is doing this intentionally. It's just a side affect of privilege, and the concept of race/ gender privilege wasn't as examined when he was writing this book, so he likely wouldn't have really even had the thought to take it into account. It is a good read, though. I'd recommend it, though when recommending it to non-white or female readers, I add a caveat that it's sometimes hard to differentiate his wry voice from his clueless voice.
( )

I really liked this book. I haven't mentioned it to my friend who's a labor historian because I'm afraid she'll tell me it was written by the devil and I won't be allowed to like it anymore. But I don't think it was. ( )