A review by chicagoliz
Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander

4.0

This is a must-read, especially if you are interested in the state of our country and the anger of the working class. This is actually better than Hillbilly Elegy -- both books written by native Ohioans about their hometowns, although Hillbilly Elegy is more strictly memoir whereas this book is more of a journalistic piece. Although this is why I knock off a star -- the author writes about his hometown, but struggles to keep the reporting at a distance. But this isn't acknowledged, and often the book 'breaks the fourth wall' so to speak, yet in other places ignores the personal connection the town has to the author. This might have worked better had it been written by a journalist without a direct connection to the town. Also there were parts that were confusing -- like they were things the author knew, but a reader unfamiliar with the town would not know. There were also many people discussed in the book and I found it hard to keep some of them straight.

All in all, though, this is an excellent description of what has gone wrong in our country. The simple fact is that LBOs and other similar financial maneuvers should be outlawed, as they have directly dismantled and destroyed our towns and our society. The government has decreed that corporations are people, but they allow them to get away with refusing to pay the social costs and encourage them not to become a part of the fabric of the community but rather to rip it apart. There is no reason it has to be this way.