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American Made
- What Happens to People When Work Disappears
- Narrated by: Farah Stockman
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
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Publisher's summary
What happens when Americans lose their jobs? In American Made, an illuminating story of ruin and reinvention, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Farah Stockman gives an up-close look at the profound role work plays in our sense of identity and belonging, as she follows three workers whose lives unravel when the factory they have dedicated so much to closes down.
“With humor, breathtaking honesty, and a historian’s satellite view, American Made illuminates the fault lines ripping America apart.” (Beth Macy, author of Factory Man and Dopesick)
Shannon, Wally, and John built their lives around their place of work. Shannon, a white single mother, became the first woman to run the dangerous furnaces at the Rexnord manufacturing plant in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was proud of producing one of the world’s top brands of steel bearings. Wally, a black man known for his initiative and kindness, was promoted to chairman of efficiency, one of the most coveted posts on the factory floor, and dreamed of starting his own barbecue business one day. John, a white machine operator, came from a multigenerational union family and clashed with a work environment that was increasingly hostile to organized labor.
The Rexnord factory had served as one of the economic engines for the surrounding community. When it closed, hundreds of people lost their jobs. What had life been like for Shannon, Wally, and John, before the plant shut down? And what became of them after the jobs moved to Mexico and Texas?
American Made is the story of a community struggling to reinvent itself. It is also a story about race, class, and American values, and how jobs serve as a bedrock of people’s lives and drive powerful social justice movements. This revealing book shines a light on a crucial political moment, when joblessness and anxiety about the future of work have made themselves heard at a national level. Most of all, American Made is a story about people: who we consider to be one of us and how the dignity of work lies at the heart of who we are.
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By: Mark Arax
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Pesos
- The Rise and Fall of a Border Family
- By: Pietro La Greca Jr., Rebecca Paley - contributor
- Narrated by: Tony Dalton
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Pietro La Greca Sr. was an intimidating Napolitano con man dubbed “Mexico’s real-life Don Corleone”. He ran Mexico’s biggest money-laundering scheme during the worst economic period in the country’s history. His was a world of fast cars, mansions on the water, and VIP treatment at Las Vegas casinos. His exploitation of Mexico’s financial free fall made him a wealthy man. But while he was running his criminal empire, his son, Pietro Jr., a.k.a. Picho, was learning his father’s tricks—if only to bring the man down.
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A Must Read Story
- By April Wells on 11-04-22
By: Pietro La Greca Jr., and others
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Invisible Child
- Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City
- By: Andrea Elliott
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrea Elliott follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani, a girl whose imagination is as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn shelter. In this sweeping narrative, Elliott weaves the story of Dasani’s childhood with the history of her ancestors, tracing their passage from slavery to the Great Migration north. As Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis has exploded, deepening the chasm between rich and poor. She must guide her siblings through a world riddled by hunger, violence, racism, drug addiction, and the threat of foster care.
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Narration is completely over the top
- By Heather on 10-14-21
By: Andrea Elliott
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The Shanghai Free Taxi
- Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China
- By: Frank Langfitt
- Narrated by: Frank Langfitt
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In this adventurous, original book, NPR correspondent Frank Langfitt describes how he created a free taxi service - offering rides in exchange for illuminating conversation - to go beyond the headlines and get to know a wide range of colorful, compelling characters representative of the new China. They include folks like "Beer", a slippery salesman who tries to sell Langfitt a used car; Rocky, a farm boy turned Shanghai lawyer; and Chen, who runs an underground Christian church and moves his family to America in search of a better, freer life.
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Too political
- By dah551 on 06-26-19
By: Frank Langfitt
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The Vapors
- A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice
- By: David Hill
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor, and America's original national park - as well as horse racing, nearly a dozen illegal casinos, countless backrooms and brothels, and some of the country’s most bald-faced criminals.
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If you don’t live in Arkansas…
- By JohnFern0813 on 08-14-20
By: David Hill
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Stealing Home
- Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between
- By: Eric Nusbaum
- Narrated by: David Owen Nelson
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant Mexican American communities. In the early 1950s, those communities were condemned to make way for a utopian public housing project. Then, in a remarkable turn, public housing in the city was defeated amidst a Red Scare conspiracy.
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Once Upon a Time at Dodger Stadium
- By James Gamble on 03-06-21
By: Eric Nusbaum
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The Yellow House
- By: Sarah M. Broom
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant - the postwar optimism seemed assured. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities.
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Great book. I wish the pictures had been included.
- By Lindsay on 02-28-20
By: Sarah M. Broom
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
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Missing some important angles
- By D. Zimmerle on 08-19-21
By: Alec MacGillis
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High-Risers
- Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing
- By: Ben Austen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to 23 towers and a population of 20,000 - all of it packed onto just 70 acres a few blocks from Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource - it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed.
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Little mention of accountability of the people getting the housing
- By Steve D Renz on 05-15-18
By: Ben Austen
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My Grandfather's Son
- A Memoir
- By: Clarence Thomas
- Narrated by: Clarence Thomas
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Provocative, inspiring, and unflinchingly honest, My Grandfather's Son is the story of one of America's most remarkable and controversial leaders, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told in his own words.
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Wonderful read
- By Amazon Customer on 10-17-21
By: Clarence Thomas
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Glass House
- The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town
- By: Brian Alexander
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Anchor Hocking Glass Company, once the world's largest maker of glass tableware, was the base on which Lancaster's society was built. As Glass House unfolds, bankruptcy looms. With access to the company and its leaders, and Lancaster's citizens, Alexander shows how financial engineering took hold in the 1980s, accelerated in the 21st century, and wrecked the company.
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What really happened to the American Dream?
- By Bill on 05-10-17
By: Brian Alexander
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The Undocumented Americans
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
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Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
- By RapaciousReader on 04-11-20
What listeners say about American Made
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Daniel
- 02-03-22
Good story, too much politics
Overall, engaging story about a real issue in modern America. However, the author puts way too much of her personal politics into the book and way too much focus on Trump and not on the people she’s writing about.
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- Kat
- 10-25-21
Must Read
This is the best book I’ve listened to in ages. It is so well written and you easily get to know and love the people. This is such a relevant and necessary topic especially in the current political climate.
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2 people found this helpful
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- MoMa
- 11-12-21
Explains a lot!
I have been searching for books that will help me better understand the Trump phenomena and the divide that has arisen between "Coastal Elites"/Liberals and the working class. This book does it! By telling the stories of 3 laid-off factory workers, Farah Stockman captures the essence of the troubling dilemma our country is facing.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Vanessa Kulick
- 12-10-21
Eye opening and a wonderful read
Couldn’t stop listening. Truly opened my eyes. I am grateful for the journey of this book. I hope the majority of Americans read this book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anne
- 02-02-23
Walked me through other shoes
I can’t remember how I came to purchase and “read“ this Audible book. But I really got a hard view into a group of whom I have little life experience. I felt like the author was taking me with her as she got to know her subjects. And I developed real respect for them.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-23-24
Not a Simple Solution
There’s not one simple solution to this complicated issue. It is important to note that Americans want low product prices but that means that American corporations can only do that at a cost of lost jobs by moving production elsewhere. Quality control has suffered too. There are many costs associated with letting thousands of illegal immigrants into America unfettered. They will accept no wagers so Americans have to accept lowers wages too.
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- Laura
- 10-27-21
Work Matters....Full Stop.
I finished this book in a day and have been thinking about it ever since. I read the original piece in the NYT and was so thrilled to hear that Ms. Stockman followed up not only on Shannon's story, but we met two other gentleman with such compelling stories. I don't want to even compare this book to Hillbilly Elegy, because that book seemed fictional in so many ways, but this book....THIS book, really helped me to understand how so many working class Americans could vote for a con man like Trump. ALL politicians are con men to the folks working in these factories, at least for a lot of the workers anyway. I really came to understand that viewpoint on a deeper level.
But...that wasn't the biggest take-away....that was most certainly that we undervalue our manufacturing workers and that they don't want a check from the government....they want to be valued at their place of work. They seemed to want to collectively say....take your automation, robots and universal income and shove it! I just loved the detail and nuance that Ms. Stockman conveyed in this novel. Also, I wasn't sure if I'd love the author as narrator, but it was perfect. I felt that she really brought an extra something to the narration because she spent so much time with the people in the novel...she had a level of respect and understanding for them that really shone threw in her delivery. I have recommended this book to many friends....I hope others do the same!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-26-22
Great craftsmanship
Not only does she bring life to the characters, Farah also gives brilliant color to the time (social, political and economic).
The warmth and attachment to characters can be felt. EXCELLENT READ!
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1 person found this helpful
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- B A Rhodes
- 01-21-23
Awesome
Best book I have read in a long time. I had read Studs Terkel’s Working, and thought this would be similar. But it was so much more. First, the author follows her characters over time so the reader feels a kinship, and pimmerses you into the everyday lives and constant struggles of these hardworking blue collar American families. Ms Stockman presents a very clear picture of how racism, class, injustice, education, the economy, politics, NAFTA, globalism and more have been stacked against them. You learn how strong and resilient they have had to become to manage a stable existence for their families when they live every day one paycheck or one illness or one factory closing away from homelessness. Anyone who believes there is such a thing as a level playing field is fooling themselves. My heart aches for all those who suffer this type of near constant insecurity. Kudos to Ms. Stockman for bringing us such an illuminating book.
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- JCM
- 11-07-21
An important read
One of the things we on the coasts like to believe is that the working class supported Donald Trump out of racism and resentment. This book shows how it was more out of desperation. It is hard to be poor in America, and while the liberalization of trade over the past 30 years has been a net benefit for the country and has increased economic growth, the people who paid the price are the people who lost good union jobs to foreign competition. They turned to Trump because they saw no other choice -- Republicans and Democrats alike had thrown them to the wolves. Of course in turning to Trump they bought his tissue of lies, and wound up supporting a person who just shoveled more money into the pockets of the rich, but the reason is still there and it needs to be understood. We also need a serious conversation about what our turn toward anti-unionism has done to fairness in America. Union jobs are good jobs, and we should be supporting politicians who want to help organize workers, not undermine them.
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1 person found this helpful