Monday, January 14, 2008
[IWS] ILR Press: CORPORATE WASTELAND: THE LANDSCAPE & MEMORY OF DEINDUSTRIALIZATION [January 2008]
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
ILR Press (an imprint of Cornell University Press)
CORPORATE WASTELAND
The Landscape and Memory of Deindustrialization [January 2008]
Steven High; David W. Lewis
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4789
$18.95s paper
2008, 192 pages, 6 x 9, 25 halftones
ISBN: 978-0-8014-7401-9
Deindustrialization is not simply an economic process, but a social and cultural one as well. The rusting detritus of our industrial pastthe wrecked hulks of factories, abandoned machinery too large to remove, and now-useless infrastructureshas for decades been a part of the North American landscape. In recent years, however, these modern ruins have become cultural attractions, drawing increasing numbers of adventurers, artists, and those curious about a forgotten heritage. Through a unique blend of oral history, photographs, and interpretive essays, Corporate Wasteland investigates this fascinating terrain and the phenomenon of its loss and rediscovery.
Steven High and David W. Lewis begin by exploring an emerging aesthetic they term the deindustrial sublime, explaining how the ritualized demolition of landmark industrial structures served as dramatic punctuations between changing eras. They then follow the narrative path blazed by urban spelunkers, explorers who infiltrate former industrial sites and then share accounts and images of their exploits in a vibrant online community. And to understand the ways in which geographic and emotional proximity affects how deindustrialization is remembered and represented, High and Lewis focus on Youngstown, Ohio, where residents and former steelworkers still live amid the reminders of more prosperous times.
Corporate Wasteland concludes with photo essays of sites in Michigan, Ontario, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania that pair haunting images with the poignant testimonies of those who remember industrial sites as workplaces rather than monuments. Forcing readers to look beyond nostalgia, High and Lewis reinterpret our deindustrialized landscape as a historical and imaginative challenge to the ways in which we comprehend and respond to the profound disruptions wrought by globalization.
Reviews
"Corporate Wasteland is more than simply the best book on deindustrialization; it's a transnational road trip through the rust belt with everyone from Woody Guthrie to Walker Evans, Joseph Schumpeter to John Steinbeck along for the ride, pointing out the details, arguing about what happened, and digging into the rich complexity of truth itself. The transcendent photographs of rotting industrial hulks and the elegiac words of the workers sear with the intensity of the once red-hot blast furnaces, now long grown cold. This book is not a lamentit is an interrogation of entire landscape."Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University, author of Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor
"For the visitor, abandoned structures articulate in hushed eloquence how a town actually can have a broken heart. Corporate Wasteland is an exceptionally thoughtful treatment that reaffirms the malignant beauty and dignified legacy of these structures and communities."Mayor John K. Fetterman, Braddock, Pennsylvania
About the Author
Steven High is Canada Research Chair in Public History at Concordia University in Montreal. He is the author of Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt, 1969-1984. David W. Lewis is a photographer and the author of The Art of Bromoil and Transfer and The Passion Pit: A Tribute to the Drive-in.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
ILR Press (an imprint of Cornell University Press)
CORPORATE WASTELAND
The Landscape and Memory of Deindustrialization [January 2008]
Steven High; David W. Lewis
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4789
$18.95s paper
2008, 192 pages, 6 x 9, 25 halftones
ISBN: 978-0-8014-7401-9
Deindustrialization is not simply an economic process, but a social and cultural one as well. The rusting detritus of our industrial pastthe wrecked hulks of factories, abandoned machinery too large to remove, and now-useless infrastructureshas for decades been a part of the North American landscape. In recent years, however, these modern ruins have become cultural attractions, drawing increasing numbers of adventurers, artists, and those curious about a forgotten heritage. Through a unique blend of oral history, photographs, and interpretive essays, Corporate Wasteland investigates this fascinating terrain and the phenomenon of its loss and rediscovery.
Steven High and David W. Lewis begin by exploring an emerging aesthetic they term the deindustrial sublime, explaining how the ritualized demolition of landmark industrial structures served as dramatic punctuations between changing eras. They then follow the narrative path blazed by urban spelunkers, explorers who infiltrate former industrial sites and then share accounts and images of their exploits in a vibrant online community. And to understand the ways in which geographic and emotional proximity affects how deindustrialization is remembered and represented, High and Lewis focus on Youngstown, Ohio, where residents and former steelworkers still live amid the reminders of more prosperous times.
Corporate Wasteland concludes with photo essays of sites in Michigan, Ontario, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania that pair haunting images with the poignant testimonies of those who remember industrial sites as workplaces rather than monuments. Forcing readers to look beyond nostalgia, High and Lewis reinterpret our deindustrialized landscape as a historical and imaginative challenge to the ways in which we comprehend and respond to the profound disruptions wrought by globalization.
Reviews
"Corporate Wasteland is more than simply the best book on deindustrialization; it's a transnational road trip through the rust belt with everyone from Woody Guthrie to Walker Evans, Joseph Schumpeter to John Steinbeck along for the ride, pointing out the details, arguing about what happened, and digging into the rich complexity of truth itself. The transcendent photographs of rotting industrial hulks and the elegiac words of the workers sear with the intensity of the once red-hot blast furnaces, now long grown cold. This book is not a lamentit is an interrogation of entire landscape."Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University, author of Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor
"For the visitor, abandoned structures articulate in hushed eloquence how a town actually can have a broken heart. Corporate Wasteland is an exceptionally thoughtful treatment that reaffirms the malignant beauty and dignified legacy of these structures and communities."Mayor John K. Fetterman, Braddock, Pennsylvania
About the Author
Steven High is Canada Research Chair in Public History at Concordia University in Montreal. He is the author of Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt, 1969-1984. David W. Lewis is a photographer and the author of The Art of Bromoil and Transfer and The Passion Pit: A Tribute to the Drive-in.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
# posted by SBasefsky : 8:45 AM
