Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town

by Beth Macy

The instant New York Times bestseller about one man's battle to save hundreds of jobs by demonstrating the greatness of American business.

The Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. Run by the same powerful Virginia family for generations, it was also the center of life in Bassett, Virginia. But beginning in the 1980s, the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately Bassett was forced to send its production overseas.

One man fought John Bassett III, a shrewd and determined third-generation factory man, now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of more than $90 million. In Factory Man , Beth Macy brings to life Bassett's deeply personal furniture and family story, along with a host of characters from an industry that was as cutthroat as it was colorful. As she shows how he uses legal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, and sheer grit and cunning to save hundreds of jobs, she also reveals the truth about modern industry in America.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, History, Biography, Economics, Audiobook, Book Club

464 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2014

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm from Bassett, VA - a grandson of two factory workers, son of a John D Bassett High School graduate, son of a former director of the Bassett High School Band, baptized at Pocahontas Bassett Baptist Church, lived on Pocahontas Trail - and very sad when I drive through town these days, to see what has happened to the town, the whole area. I'm reading this book now and it is helping me to understand my own history, my own grief.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town is getting a disappointing 3 Stars as it did not measure up to my expectations. It is an excellent book if you would like to see the development of the furniture industry and how various centers of furniture making have been subjected to “creative destruction”. The Virginia/North Carolina nexus of furniture making took the business away from Detroit which had taken it from Boston which had taken it from England. Now China was taking it away from the US. When Chinese manufacturers are subjected to dumping penalties, the industry moves to Indonesia and Vietnam. This book suffers from the fact that the author, by her own admission, is not a business author. I was looking for the business story of how NAFTA/free trade/capitalism/protectionism/politics/globalism/etc combined to produce the current situation but it’s not really here.

John Bassett III, heir to one of the most famous furniture families is at the heart of this book. However, most of the book is about the building of Bassett Furniture and other companies. You don’t get to the main theme, i.e., how JBIII “battles off-shoring, stays local and saves a town” until more than 200 pages in. Even then, that story is more of a sketch than a full-blown recounting. Not what I was expecting after seeing the author and JBIII on BookTV a while back. The author flits among topics without really doing an analysis. For example, the case for lower prices for the consumer vs factory jobs for the furniture employees. The author makes a typical liberal progressive appeal to emotion but I was looking for a real economic analysis, including an assessment of what benefits off-shoring has brought to the Chinese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, etc, who have the jobs now. Why is this better or worse than what happened to the Detroit, Boston, English laborers who lost their jobs to the VA/NC factories? What about the case that JBIII and his like are just using corrupt politicians to protect their little fiefdoms? You get the emotional impact of poor southern folks losing their jobs and going on welfare without a solid economic analysis. I was looking for proposals to address the issue based on the main story but that is not addressed except build barriers (might be unfair as the book didn't promise this). In fact, much of the damage to the industry was caused by standard corporate malfeasance and hubris. It was interesting to see how furniture companies were on both sides of the argument, as many made money by importing much of their furniture from overseas.

What makes this book worth your time is the story of Bassett in the early days. The Bassett family built a company town, along with the factories. In the Jim Crow south, they were the only ones to hire black workers, who got the dirty jobs and less pay, but had paying jobs. The stories of industrial development, race relations, hard work, capitalism, etc are quite good. I thought the author was pretty fair in recounting all sides of the issues. The first 250 pages really paint an excellent portrait of America from 1902 to mid-2000s.

My high hopes for the book were driven by personal experience. In 2004, while traveling to Hong Kong, I met a man from a well-known MidWest manufacturing firm who was traveling to China to inspect potential partners for his company. The man was greatly conflicted because he knew American workers (and his friends) would lose their jobs because of his work. So much manufacturing has been transferred since then. That same year, I did a study of Chinese education and learned that China was graduating as many engineers every year as the US was graduating college students. When my kids asked what they should study in school, I told them engineering. Got two engineers (mechanical and petroleum) and a potential third one in the future. Doin’ my part.

Update 15 Aug 2016: Just watched a report on FBN about China stealing our furniture-making jobs which resulted in a retail operation being closed? Umm, dude, the jobs moved on from China to Vietnam, Malaysia, etc a while ago. Might want to read this book and get a little smarter. Much of the displacement was caused by corporations voluntarily moving furniture making to cheaper labor markets. It's called globalism, capitalism, free trade, etc. But getting smart on trade would be too hard for reporters. Better to indulge in the quick vignette and picture of empty showroom. No background info needed. The sloganeering of the day...damn furriners takin our jobs.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

What sparked my interest in this book was a number of things. One being that I lived in Martinsville Virginia for a few years (around where the story takes place) and that I have a fascination of how so many American companies choose cheap furniture made oversees in order to fill their pockets full of more money. I just can't imagine putting my name on something of such low quality just to have that extra summer home that I would only visit once in a while.

I had no idea, shame on me, that John Bassett III of Bassett Furniture Company took on China... and won! I, for probably the first time, was proud to say that I once lived in an area where a company actually cared about saving hundreds of jobs and keeping the quality that the furniture deserves.

What impressed me most about John Bassett III was that doing something this daring comes at a cost. Since so many companies are offshoring their businesses, this made many of his colleagues and competitors very angry. Not only that, but he lost a lot of business due to companies not carrying his furniture because of this. It was so refreshing to see someone not give into the pressures of others and sacrifice his own money for the welfare of his employees.

Bravo to the author for her great research and a definite bravo for John Bassett III. Stories such as these are rare, but I hope that he has laid down a foundation for other companies to come.

[Diz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This doesn't quite deliver what it promises on the cover. Rather than a tightly focused book on how an American businessman was able to keep a furniture factory open in the United States, we get a rambling narrative of the company's history. About 50% of the book covers the history of Bassett Furniture and Vaughn-Bassett Furniture, so you have to read quite a lot before the issue of offshoring even comes up. Additionally, there are several personal narratives related to the interview process that are not related to offshoring either. In the end, the content related to offshoring seems a bit thin.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing book. It's the story of the Basset Furniture empire, but it's also the story of America: family drama, business, industrialization, international commerce and competition and how the little guy becomes the big guy and then back again. It's also so well-written, Beth Macy is a great storyteller. Highly recommended.

[Madelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read Beth Macy's reporting for years and I loved seeing all of her skills come together to give these towns, these people and these issues the attention they deserve. You'll be hearing a lot more about this book this year.

[Dan Schiff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beth Macy is an incredibly dogged, scrappy reporter. But she's not quite a masterful storyteller. The tale of how Virginia furniture manufacturing came and went in Factory Man, along with Macy's folksy writing style, never quite grabbed me. I would have preferred it as a feature piece in Fortune magazine, as opposed to a 400-page book.

A big part of the problem is that Macy's protagonist, furniture scion and family outcast John Bassett III, is not nearly as interesting a character as she seems to think. Where the author saw a larger-than-life icon of American industry, I saw a hard-working but unremarkable good ole boy given to shouting off-color remarks and repeating the same three or four aphorisms over and over.

But surely the story of how Bassett saved the Vaughn-Bassett furniture company in the face of cheap Asian competition would be full of American grit, ingenuity and innovation, right? Actually, Bassett's main weapon is an anti-dumping petition filed with the International Trade Commission. The irony of a lifelong Republican turning to government to keep private industry afloat in red state Virginia is acknowledged in one sentence in the book.

While Bassett surely did the right thing by his employees and community in keeping his US factories open, he was only able to do so because Vaughn-Bassett is a privately held company, without shareholders clambering to reduce overhead and pad the bottom line. This too gets little acknowledgement from Macy.

As a companion piece to Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, Factory Man is a valuable work. Macy frequently assails Friedman in her book for his glossing over of what globalization does to blue collar American workers. Of course, this is not a new criticism of Friedman, and she's right. Macy's tireless reporting and countless interviews with struggling victims of offshoring are the best part of Factory Man.

There are also ripple effects in the communities that once hosted the hotbed of American furniture manufacturing. As Bassett Furniture closes down its Virginia operations in its namesake town, it eventually stops paying to light the street lamps, so citizens are forced to take up a collection and donate hundreds of dollars each year to keep each lamp running. It's a microcosm of the damage done by unfettered corporatism; but as Americans, we did this to ourselves by prioritizing cheap goods and profits over strong communities. What do we ultimately value as an economy and a society? Macy never quite ties all the big questions together, leaving what feels like an incomplete narrative.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read. The first roughly 60% due to the family history, which was full of drama, and the history of the furniture factory, which was also drama filled and built on the backs of the underprivileged and helped along by some industry espionage and thievery. You need a family tree to follow who is who, especially since a set of Bassett brothers married a set of sisters, so things get kinda confusing.

After roughly the 60% mark, you get into the meat of the subtitle of this book, how one furniture maker battled offshoring, stayed local and helped save an American town. What the Chinese were doing was, arguably, what the founding fathers of the Southern furniture factories did to the Northern ones.

I just can't understand how ANYone in their right mind in America would buy OTHER than American when it is an option. Buying from China basically funds China, a communist government that has horrible human rights violations and doesn't give a fig for the environment, which affects the entire planet, not just their country. Why would anyone do that? Cuz it's cheaper.

But, it's only cheaper until they manage to drive all of the American businesses out of business, then they jack the prices up horribly. How much does a cell phone cost? Who makes them? American at all? No? Well, fancy that.

This book was GREAT, after the family stuff and history was done. It was necessary, I can see that, but it was kind of boring and took a long time to get through. Definitely a worthy read, but be prepared to dislike humanity in general when reading it. I seem to have an issue with non-fiction books. They all make me dislike humanity at some level. This book is no exception.

It is a good book. I would recommend it if you are into 'MERICA, the global economy or Southern American history specific to furniture. It is an interesting underdog story and JBIII is perfect for soundbites on the evening news.

Three stars. The beginning was kind of boring and drawn out, the ending was breakneck speed and super-interesting.

My thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

[Wendi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is simply AMAZING! From the hero character JBIII to the unemployed and underemployed of Bassett, Va., and all the way to Asia, it's a story of globalization that gripped me from the get-go. I had no idea a business book could be so readable. And it made me cry.

[Bill Glose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books of our times. It describes how globalization is tearing apart the fabric of America by outsourcing its ability to produce by showcasing the plight of individuals and the surrounding community affected by the shuttering of Bassett Furniture factories. Not only does Roanoke Times reporter Beth Macy bring together impressive research on the rise, fall and outsourcing of an American furniture empire, but she also tells the story in compelling fashion.

America rose to become the world's leading superpower based on its manufacturing might. The loss of over 65,000 factories in the last decade is the main reason for its current decline. We've all heard the stories before of corporate greed wiping out once booming factory towns. By relocating manufacturing operations to foreign countries, companies can produce cheaper products, pay workers scandalously low wages, and profit from lackadaisical regulations on emissions and other environmental factors. Stockholders see a short-term increase while buyout clauses and golden parachutes allow upper management to live fat off pensions, leaving displaced workers to scramble for work, usually at much lower wages and with fewer benefits than before.

The media had played out other variations of this story for years—the steel industry’s implosion, the garment industry’s exodus to Asia, Detroit’s bankruptcy. But then Macy discovered something new and hopeful: one company, Vaughn-Bassett Furniture, was bucking the trend and keeping its manufacturing operations in Galax, Virginia. And the sole reason was that the indomitable owner, John Bassett III, wished to keep his employees working and his community thriving.

Her in-depth investigation into the rise and fall of the Bassett furniture empire and the effects of globalization on American factory towns is at the heart of Macy’s fascinating book, Factory Man. Her book details the history of Bassett Furniture back to its formation in 1902, when John D. Bassett decided to stop shipping lumber from his sawmill to furniture factories in the Midwest so he could make his own furniture in Virginia. While his Midwestern competitors stodgily maintained artful handcraftsmanship, Bassett implemented assembly line techniques and produced a high volume of less expensive furniture, and stores throughout the South filled their showrooms with his product.

In addition to saving on transportation costs, Bassett rode his way to the top on the backs of cheap labor. This was the South a mere forty years after the Civil War, and Jim Crow laws prevented blacks from doing much of anything that could advance their situation. But the Bassett factories were some of the first in the South to hire black workers. As Macy writes, “Black employees knew their salaries weren’t equal to the whites’ working at Bassett, and the possibility for advancement was nil. But for the most part, they were treated with some dignity, and, relative to other jobs in the segregated South, working conditions were adequate. ...They worked the hottest, dirtiest jobs, usually in the finishing room, where it didn’t matter how dark you were: when the whistle blew at the end of the day, everyone was stained with varnish.”

Macy does a superb job of painting a full picture, counterbalancing the generous opportunities and good deeds of Bassett Furniture with the founding family’s sometimes underhanded business practices, such as pouncing when a competitor’s popular furniture set sold out by creating a knockoff they would sell at half the price.

Macy also shines light on the skeletons in the Bassett family closet, such as cousins marrying each other to keep their fortune within the family. One maid, Dollie Finney, “wore two girdles at once to keep wandering Bassett hands in check.” But these peccadillos are merely side dishes. The main course is the building and maintaining of a furniture empire.

As chapters progress, Bassett Furniture becomes the largest wooden furniture company in the world and the corporation spawns several subsidiaries, one of which was Vaughn-Bassett Furniture. Then in the 1980s, Asian companies started buying up interests in manufacturing plants and foreign nationals came over to supervise production and figure out processes. It all seemed harmless at first, but then, one by one, factories were replaced by facsimiles of themselves in far-off lands and the market was soon flooded with products far cheaper than anything that could be made in America.

Bassett Furniture shut down 28 of its 42 factories and shifted their focus to retail operations, where they could sell Asia-made product bearing the Bassett name. The town it created—-Bassett, Virginia—-fell on hard times, but just down the road in Galax, Vaughn-Bassett Furniture held fast. The once subsidiary company even tried to buy one of Bassett Furniture’s shuttered plants, but the former parent company razed the building instead.

Selling Vaughn-Bassett Furniture would be lucrative, but the owner, John Bassett III, decided to fight back. The Chinese were selling a wooden dresser for $100, an amount less than the cost of its component material. This was a violation of World Trade Organization laws, so Bassett traveled to Dalian, China to find out how they were doing it. It took some undercover work, but he discovered that the Chinese government was subsidizing their businesses so they could deeply undercut everyone else in the market. This was precisely the type of thing the World Trade Organization was formed to prevent, so Bassett sued. And won.

With money he won from his antidumping case, Bassett reinvested in his company. He spent millions on state-of-the art machinery and streamlined his factory’s processes. While his success story provides a blueprint that other industry leaders can follow, it also presents a stark truth: for factory towns to survive in today’s global economy, owners must eschew short-term bonanzas for the stability of long-term profit in a stabilized economy. For a society with rich tastes and an eye for shortcuts, that might be asking too much.

[Mark Mortensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Factory Man” is a story of the Bassett Furniture Company once the world’s largest furniture maker and heir John D. Bassett III, who was determined to maintain American manufacturing and fight Chinese dumping imports. In his quest to stem massive layoffs and plant closings he also had to take a stand against some Americans.

The company founded in 1902 by J.D. Bassett expanded through innovation and reinvestment during the 20th Century. J.D. Bassett was ecstatic when his grandson, John D. Bassett III (JBIII) was born in 1937 with a sliver spoon into the prominent family to reside in the town of Bassett, Virginia named after the family.

Every work atmosphere has its own unique culture and the family owned Bassett Furniture Company was no different. Author Beth Macy digs deep and brings all the issues to the surface. When JBIII the fair haired child became the black sheep of the family his fear of failure became his motivation. The visionary with personal wealth, an acute sense of business, the right connections and a strong will to succeed, charted his own course.

Manufacturing is the backbone of America creating jobs and careers beyond walls and into the community. I have long agreed with the philosophy of JBIII that true engineering for improvement and innovation takes place outside higher education classrooms rather with hands on application using all human senses. This story is an example of how one individual can impact society. It’s a great case study for business, economics and politics revealing a positive path forward for Americans in the 21st Century.

Side note:
In the 1970’s and 1980’s Bassett-Walker, Inc., a knitting company, which John D. Bassett Jr. was once chairman, was recognized as the leading world-wide manufacturer of sweatpants and sweatshirts. By the turn of the 21st Century the main manufacturing facility that once employed roughly 2,400 employees stood empty.

My in-laws started their own textile company 27 years ago structured around the experience and highly gifted mind of my father-in-law with the aid of a cocktail party, a television show and a telephone conversation between my mother-in-law and famed capitalist Malcolm Forbes where Mr. Forbes affirmatively stated: “Go for it!” Early on my father-in-law used his ingenuity and partnered with Hasbro, Inc. engineers to develop the Cabbage Patch Doll hair, becoming the sole yarn supplier.

Almost a decade ago my in-laws relocated their company to the vacant Bassett-Walker building and leased a portion (220,000 sq. ft.). Today their company is the specialized industry leader of the western hemisphere shipping high tech textured yarn destined for furniture upholstery, apparel, automotive, industrial, medical and military end uses.

I’m a sales executive in the company with several roles. My vested interest is expanding sales and taking the company to the next level to swing the pendulum back revitalizing “Made in America” manufacturing. In 2011 I authored a very historical World War I book that due to the 100th Anniversary could not be delayed until retirement. Some folks ask if I’m planning to write another book. Not now, but maybe in my twilight years of retirement.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Between 2001 and 2013, 63,300 American factories closed their doors and five million American factory jobs went away. During that same time, China’s manufacturing base ballooned to the tune of 14.1 million new jobs.”

Numbers like these are impossible for any of us to get our arms around. How can we understand the human impact of this historic shift when all we have to work with are statistics only an economist could love? The award-winning journalist Beth Macy beautifully responds to that question in Factory Man by bringing the story down to human dimensions. Instead of tracing history writ large, she focuses on the story of one man in the US furniture industry who led the fight against globalization that had shuttered thousands of factories in Virginia, North Carolina, and elsewhere in the South. If you want to understand globalization and its impact on the US economy and on millions of hard-working Americans, Factory Man is a brilliant introduction.

The man under Macy’s microscope, John W. Bassett III, was the grandson of the founder of what had been the largest manufacturer of wooden furniture in America for many years. After decades of successful and profitable work opening and running dozens of furniture factories, JBIII (as he’s called familiarly) organized the coalition that successfully persuaded the US government to pursue trade sanctions against dumping by Chinese furniture makers. In the process, he managed to keep some 700 employees on the job in his one remaining factory in Galax, Virginia. Macy puts a positive spin on the courage and persistence that enabled Bassett to win this victory. However, given the big picture in which this story is just a tiny highlight, it’s impossible to come away with a feeling that Bassett’s victory was anything but pyrrhic.

Macy’s reporting is unfailingly even-handed. JBIII is one of those larger-than-life characters with as many flaws as strengths, and he comes across as a fully believable human being in Macy’s telling. The men who competed with him, the Chinese entrepreneurs who rose up to challenge him, and the Americans who fought bitterly against the legal action he initiated, all emerge as credible individuals as well. However, Macy’s attention isn’t devoted entirely to the owners and bosses. During the nearly two years she devoted to researching Factory Man, she spent considerable time talking to both current and former workers at Bassett’s plants and elsewhere. The result is a well-rounded picture of the price we pay for globalization — a reality overlooked by the politicians, economists, and columnists who are its biggest cheerleaders.

Factory Man is lively and eminently readable. Macy writes from a very personal perspective, reporting on her relationships with the characters she portrays — including a large measure of frustration with JBIII as well as others who proved so difficult to interview. Traditional journalists may frown on this sort of thing, but as a reader I appreciate it. Understanding how the author uncovered this story makes it all the more rewarding to read.

[Tom Landon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just read the galleys of this book and I can't wait for it to come out. It's sure to ruffle a few feathers in Bassett, VA, but the story of how one man fought offshoring to save his furniture factory and a town from becoming abandoned like so many other southern factory towns is inspiring and a damn fine story.

I admit to some bias as I know the author well, but I think you all will get just as sucked into the story as I did. It's not just a business story, though that's there - it's a tale of complicated race relations in the Jim Crow south, financial intrigue within a powerful family, and a blueprint for what it's going to take to save manufacturing jobs in America in the face of intense and often unfair competition.

Publishing date is July 15, 2014.

[HR-ML · Rating 2 out of 5]

I previously read "Dopesick" by this same author.
DNF this. May try again later?

This featured the Bassett furniture-making dynasty.
I got the many Bassett family members confused. The
family-tree provided was too small & faint to read on
my old Kindle. Trying to see the family-tree 'on the
cloud' did not work either. I thought the author could've
organized this material better. Why not devote a chapter
to the population stats. & typical jobs available to the
people? And a chapter or more on race?

Once again, the author showed her strength via interviews
with workers with a job, who lost a job, or 'between jobs.'

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review title: All globalization is local

Beth Macy writes this modern classic of business, economics and cultural geography with a reporter's attention to facts and a novelist's sense of what matters. A reporter for the Roanoke (VA) Times, Macy wrote much of this material as a series of local-interest articles for her newspaper, and she moves effortlessly from the local people and particulars of her story to the national and global implications that rise from them. It is the kind of story that begs to be read by those in positions of authority in business, government, and international law and diplomacy.

The Factory Man of the title and the centerpiece of the story is John D. Bassett, III, the son and grandson of his namesake furniture manufacturing family and founders of the small town of Bassett in rural southwest Virginia, the center of what became the largest wood furniture manufacturing region in the country. The family tree which Macy includes before the first chapter reveals a tangle of "cousin companies", literally by blood and marriage and figuratively by intertwined corporate charters and boards of directors, all centered in the that lumber-rich region. The rural Virginia furniture companies, most owned by one or another of the Bassett family tree, succeeded by a consistent formula: cheap labor, readily available raw materials in the Virginia hardwood forests, and access to transportation to get the finished products to market.

The first half of the book, where you will need to reference the family tree often, is devoted to untangling this thread and mapping the cultural geography of the region, from its old south legacy of slavery to its small-town closeness and claustrophobia and its backwoods independence and frugality. While business reporting and political decision making may focus on the macro principles of free trade and "the world is flat" theories of globalization, the impacts live in the micro in a myriad small towns where people depend on single employers for income and the stability that enables the possibility of the American dream. Reporting that provides only the macro employment and quarterly revenue numbers misses the human story at the micro level. Macy doesn't miss it.

JBIII, as she often abbreviates her main character's name, is indeed a character, with his bold acceptance of his "silver spoon" birthright, his brusque and driven personality that brooks neither interference nor fools, and his sincere if paternalistic concern with his employees' lives, health, and continued employment. He worked maniacally to prove himself worthy to take over the family furniture company, but when his own father handed the reins to his brother-in-law who then systematically cut him out of the business, he found himself starting over at one of the cousin companies. After progressing through the ranks there by doing the dirty work that company leadership expected couldn't be done, he bought one of the other failing cousin companies with a big chunk of his own money and set himself to save the business, his self-respect, and his personal investment.

When Asian furniture imports first hit American stores in the 1950s, the quality was low and the American companies could counter by improving productivity to match the low prices. But as quality improved (in large part by American furniture makers hosting factory tours for Asian businessmen videotaping and then reverse engineering American best practices) imports began to take over the lower end of the market--small tables and MDF pressed wood pieces. To maintain profits, American companies began to resell the imports under their own brand names. But when JBIII received a medium-priced dresser from a Chinese factory in 2002 that was wholesaling for less than the cost of the raw materials alone, he realized he was facing a case of dumping--selling products below their production costs with illegal subsidies from the Chinese government. The second half of the book tells the story of how he fought back.

What raises Factory Man from a 4 star worth reading to a 5 star classic is how Macy handles this part of the story. She interviewed and researched on all sides of this multifaceted dilemma and doesn't turn her writing into a political polemic for any of the sides. Knowing the Chinese were not playing fair in international trade, how could JBIII respond? As Macy reports, while some were predicting dire job losses (Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound") others were citing numbers and projections that low priced imports in all manufacturing sectors produced a net benefit for all Americans--except in those one-company manufacturing towns like Bassett. And many American furniture companies and most furniture retailers needed the import furniture to sustain their business model; furniture factories had already been closed or converted to warehouses for the imports, factory workers laid off, and office staff converted into import managers. Even JBIII at the time of his realization was importing nearly 10% of his furniture.

While many manufacturing industries had already been gutted in the US, there were a few that took legal action with the US International Trade Commission utilizing the 1930 Tariff Act. A majority of the manufacturers in an industry had to support an antidumping petition, which would then trigger an arcane process involving the ITC, Department of Commerce investigors, and teams of highly paid lawyers hired by the participants on all sides. The problem is setting a fair market price for goods produced in countries, like China, that don't have traditional market forces at work and that blend government and private investment in ways that can't be easily sorted. At the end of this process, which may take multiple years, duties may be placed on the offending imports, with the money going either to the domestic manufacturers who petitioned, or later after the law was updated, into the US treasury.

When John Bassett took his usual direct approach and decided to fight back, he had to first win over his extended family, most of whom vehemently opposed the petition, and the industry, many of whom were already too far down the path of importing to turn back and were afraid of alienating and losing foreign partners they needed to stay in business. Without a majority of manufacturers, his battle was lost. JBIII, we learn through the course of the book, doesn't lose many battles, and after many late night calls, speeches at industry events, and hard negotiations, he was able to convince a small majority to file with him, and the fight was on. Even before the manufacturers knew the outcome of the petition (only about a third of such petitions result in import duties), he increased his investment in new technology and equipment in his factories to improve quality, cut costs and increase output, while reducing his imports to 2% and finally by 2013 eliminating them completely.

After the long expensive process ended in victory for the American manufacturers, some manufacturers and jobs were saved by putting the duty payments back into plant and employees, some companies used the payments to continue investing in retail stores and imports, and others shuttered factories and eventually went out of business. JBIII's company website (Vaughan-Bassett.com/about-us) proudly reports that 700 American employees make 100% of their furniture in the US from locally sourced hardwoods, making them the "largest manufacturer of wooden adult bedroom furniture in the United States."

Of course, many in his own family and in the industry accused him of hypocrisy or self-serving greed, many companies and jobs in the industry still went overseas (sometimes to cheap-labor countries not subject to the import duties), and most economists still tout free trade as a benefit to the majority of Americans who benefit from cheaper goods. But in the small town of Galax, Virginia, where most of John Bassett's 700 employees live and work, this is an American success story, as Bassett himself would say many times during the battle for the petition, pointing at the American flag in the room to remind furniture manufacturers and politicians why this fight was important: 'Because you're an American, that's why. Ladies and gentlemen, you were given your freedom, and you owe something to your country.' (p. 279)

By taking readers down to the micro level below the macro theory, Macy tells a classic story, one that engages the reader's mind and emotions without directing them how to think or feel. Is it a repeatable model, will it save American jobs, will it benefit most Americans, is it the right thing to do? Those questions need to be taken seriously and thought through independently of political party ideology and social media sound bites by those in business, government, and international law and diplomacy who must answer them.

[Catherine Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He may be an asshole, but when he's your asshole, that's a very good thing." Garet Bosiger. A wonderful book that is about the past, the present and the possibilities of the future. It's a reality check for the global economic theories of the 21st century that look good on paper, and even make sense intellectually, but don't really factor in the consequences on real people living in communities built on a single manufacturing industry.

As a lifelong Virginian, born in Galax and raised in Southwest Virginia, I savored every detail that author Beth Macy brought to this story. It is a portrait of a strong man, John D. Bassett III, who inherited both the privilege and the responsibility of a family owned furniture business. His analogy of being the only girl left on a deserted island with 12 men crops up several times in the book and illustrates his focus on making certain that Vaughan-Bassett was the furniture manufacturer left standing at the end of the day.

I can't say enough about the skilled research and writing that went into this book. Beth Macy comes from a manufacturing community in Ohio where her mother worked in a factory making lights for airplanes. She made her home, geographically and journalistically, in Roanoke, Virginia, working for the Roanoke Times. The book grew out of a series of articles she did for the Roanoke Times on the plant closings throughout Southwest Virginia - which was once the economic engine of the Commonwealth in the early to mid 20th century. She credits the photos of freelance photographer Jared Soares for inspiring that series of articles. It was his images of Martinsville and the people living there that made Beth Macy go searching for the answers to what happened there and why.

The Bassett family history is intriguing in a way that old Southern families often can be. It is intertwined with the history of Henry County, the Smith River, Martinsville, Galax and the company town of Bassett. The old family names synonymous with that area - Vaughan, Stanley, Bassett, Lane - appeared on furniture found in homes across America for most of the 20th century. The story of how all of that changed with Chinese manufacturing and the "globalization" of the furniture industry is a cautionary tale.

The book is riveting. The cast of characters is well drawn and by the end of the book I had the family tree well in hand. I believe that Beth Macy was fair and balanced in giving family members an opportunity to have their say if they wanted. Not all of them did. I didn't sense that she tried to make John D. Bassett III either more, or less, than the person he is. That person is larger than life. What he managed to do was a modern day Herculean effort that is not universally admired, but very much appreciated in the small city of Galax, VA (population 7,000)

Factory Man deserves the many accolades it has received from reviewers across the country. The book is a great story well told. It is solid reporting on complex issues of economic theory, industrial evolution and social change. The bonus is that it reads like a great novel. I highly recommend it.

[Elizabeth Jamison · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her inaugural book, Factory Man, Beth Macy provides a missing piece of American business and labor history - arguably the piece that is most important to understanding the United States in the 21st century - the impact of globalization on the often forgotten communities of small town America. In this compelling and exquisitely detailed and researched book, Macy tells the story of how one small town factory owner, John Bassett, III (JBIII), took the road less traveled for U.S. corporations in the last decade of the 20th century, when he opted to double down on his Made in America business strategy using the legal tools afforded him through the same international laws and agreements that enabled off-shoring to change the landscape of U.S. global business operations.

Perhaps what makes this story most compelling is the way Macy draws the reader into this story about an irascible, millionaire furniture magnate from Galax, Virginia. She makes us understand, and care about, why JBIII is fighting so hard to save one little furniture company in southwest Virginia. Macy not only inexorably connects JBIII to a furniture company, but also to families, place, and a specific U.S. history that the rules of global capital are quietly erasing from a 21st century future. By the end of this story, Macy makes us see that JBIII's fight is not only for Vaughan-Bassett in Galax Virginia, but for the survival of small town Americana. JBIII's story embodies the vestiges of an America where leaders of companies, know their communities, care about their people, love their country, and recognize the interdependence of these factors in the manufacture of their own success.

Factory Man provides a glimpse of "what was" in U.S. manufacturing success, and forces the reader to consider the question of "what will be" for small towns across the U.S. if JBIII, and others like him, don't fight, and don't win, against the tide of globalized industry, Regardless of your individual position on free trade and international tariff laws, it is virtually impossible to not be rooting for JBIII by the end of Factory Man. It would be like rooting against "small town America" itself.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of John Bassett III, heir to the men who started the Bassett furniture companies back in 1902. It tells about the history of the family business, the power struggles within the family, and JBIII's fight with Chinese imports due to their impact on the furniture industry. What a great book! The author writes really well! She was warm and kind across the board, when talking about race relations or difficult people or other controversial topics. This account of the impact of free trade on a small town in America gave me pause, because it is hard to see the benefits of lower prices if there is simply no money to spend because all the locals have lost their jobs. She handled the people stories and the business/finance stories masterfully, creating an engaging narrative that I could not put down!

And I was tickled to see that one of her interviews was with a man who attends church with my mom. The writer lives in Roanoke, VA, where I was born, and includes information about Martinsville, where my sister and brother-in-law attend church, in the book, so it had a personal connection for me!

[Donna Wetzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book!! Thanks Goodreads for my free copy of this book. I will recommend it to everyone I know. Nor only is it a great story,well written but it is also a story that needs to be told. People need to hear and understand how the decisions government makes affects all of us. This is a story of how one man stood up to help save good paying jobs from going overseas. I applaud Mr. Bassett,for his actions and Beth Macy for telling this story so elequently.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most challenging issues facing the United States in the 21st century is how to cope with the consequences of economic globalization. Free trade agreements along with the adoption of free market principles in communist countries such as China and Vietnam have resulted in rapid and dramatic changes in the U.S. labor market, generally to the detriment of those at its lowest levels. Beth Macy looks at this challenge by focusing on how one industry centered in southwest Virginia and northern North Carolina coped with these changes

The furniture manufacturing industry that was formed in this area, founded largely by a small cadre of families in the early 20th century, grew and thrived based on an ethic of hard work, innovation, luck, connections and ruthlessness. Macy concentrates her story on the businesses spawned by one family – the Bassetts. Descendants of an old Virginia family, John D. Bassett, Charles Columbus Bassett, Samuel H. Bassett, and Reed L. Stone started Bassett furniture in 1902. From that time until the 1980s Bassett Furniture and the companies spun off from it grew to be the largest furniture manufacturer in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. Bassett,VA, where the company was formed became a company town, with the Bassett family and the Bassett furniture company providing not only jobs but virtually all the other institutions and services required to service its population, including schools, banks, places of worship, and housing. This arrangement helped keep Bassett furniture supplied with steady labor, while at the same time providing its employees with a comfortable level of stability. This arrangement began to crumble however as the balance of trade began to favor formerly closed societies that were implementing capitalist economies.

By the beginning of the 21st century Asian manufacturers found ways to produce furniture of competitive quality with that produced in the United States at a much lower price. Eventually American companies, unable to compete, began importing furniture and furniture parts from these manufacturers, resulting in the rapid closing of their plants in the United States, Bassett Furniture included. For the workers formerly employed at these plants, globalization was beginning to look like the apocalypse as thousands lost their formerly secure jobs. In an economy where the quarterly bottom line was becoming the yardstick by which success was measured, their plight was of little concern. One man, however, tried to buck that trend.

John D. Bassett III had spent his formative years learning the furniture industry working for his family’s company and believed he would one day be its chairman. However, as time went on it became apparent this would not happen. He left the company his family built and eventually took over operation of the much smaller Vaughan-Bassett furniture company in Galax, VA. That company had become moribund, set in its ways, and saw its sales shrink and the quality of its offerings decline. John D. Bassett III turned the company around, instituting a hard charging attitude that saw the company adopt among other things an express service that provided a service that retailers who relied on imported Asian furniture could not compete with, rapid delivery of orders in less than a week. This allowed these retailers to minimize the inventory they had to keep on hand, thus reducing overhead costs. Despite these innovations however, by the early 2000s Vaughan-Bassett was beginning to slip behind, unable to keep up with the low prices offered by his Asian based competition; prices he believed that were not in line with the cost of their manufacture. Bassett was sure the Chinese were dumping cheap furniture into the American market in order to drive out competition.

In the two decades after the death of Mao tse Tung China became one of the top exporters in the world, eventually surpassing Japan and South Korea as the main trading partner with the United States. In 2001 they became a member of the World Trade Organization, a compact set up to “review and propagate … national trade policies, and to ensure the coherence and transparency of trade policies through surveillance in global economic policy-making.” Among these policies was an agreement not to dump cheap goods subsidized by government funding into foreign markets in order to drive out competing businesses. In 2003 it became apparent to John D. Bassett III that China was dumping cheap furniture into the American market in violation of this obligation. Rather than accept this as the natural result of evolution in the marketplace as many American manufacturers and retailers who were benefiting from these low prices were willing to do, Bassett formed a coalition of manufacturers and successfully fought China, winning a large settlement which he invested in his manufacturing operation, and saving his company and the 700 jobs that went along with it. For this action he is regarded as a hero in his adopted hometown of Galax, VA.

I really did enjoy this book for the most part. The first half or so recounts the genealogy of the Bassett family, their entry into the furniture manufacturing business, and the inevitable conflict that results when a company stays in one family for so long. In many ways the Bassetts were not all that likeable. They could be condescending to their employees, did everything they could to keep unions out of their factories, and in general behaved as you would expect good old boy millionaires from southwest Virginia would act. They were just really full of themselves, a trait I find very unattractive.

The sections of the book that dealt with John D. Bassett III’s fight against the Chinese, and his effort to save his company and the jobs it provided was riveting, and it really gave a human face to the consequences of globalization. Where labor used to be viewed as an asset, it has now simply become another cost center to be trimmed, with little thought given to the effect that trimming would have. As a result we are going through a massive shift in what kinds of jobs workers are trained for, and are reorienting how our economy relates with its trading partners. As John D.Bassett III showed however, manufacturing in the United States can survive as long as it stays nimble, combative, innovative, and has leaders who are unwilling to view its existence solely in terms of its bottom line.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book after watching the limited series dopesick (which was amazing) when I couldn’t get my hands on that book so decided to try this one by the same author. It’s non fiction journalism style which I don’t normally read. Though it could be a little dry and slow at times compared to the fictional page turners I normally read, the story did have an impact on me. Beth Macy does an amazing job of taking very complex world issues around us and laying them out in a way that makes you understand what has happened and think about where the world is going. Watching dopesick changed my view on numerous issues and reading Factory man also opened my eyes to real world issues I see daily but never thought about before. It’s the kind of book that makes you smarter and I found myself telling others about the plot lines often.

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I worked at the Martinsville Bulletin from 1999 to 2000 when the giant sucking sound Ross Perot predicted after the passage of NAFTA consumed nearly 10,000 jobs in the Martinsville/Henry County textile industry. I attended the fire-sale of the industry’s machinery to third-world agents. Sewing machines, many still had photos of grandchildren taped to them, lined up in warehouses waiting for auction while at the same time their former operators queued in the breadlines of local churches. The large working class was destroyed in that community and the middle class either could not find work or left. I was not there when thousands more jobs in the furniture industry disappeared. What free-trade apologists like Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat) do not see or care to see is what happens to people who have no realistic chance of having a full-time job with benefits again. Some putter along, cobbling together an existence as best they can, a few are able to find work in other parts of the country, and a precious few are able to retrain and find new careers in the service economy. Large numbers in Southside Virginia have simply gone on the disability rolls and now have a reliable check, healthcare, grocery supplements, subsidized housing and cell phones, etc. Beth Macy’s excellent book is about many things but what I was struck by is how expensive free trade really is for the American government and how little benefit the average American sees from it. She gives Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat) a good kick in the teeth. Friedman has been wrong about many other things, namely his enthusiasm for our late wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When I was a kid I often lamented the fact that I lived in a place with no interesting history, no stories. Beth Macy’s book is the second one I have read about the area where I grew up (the other being The Hairstons by Henry Wiencek). The book shines a light on a larger than life figure, J.D.B. III, and fight to save his business and what is left of the domestic furniture industry. Comparing John Bassett to George Patton is apt: “When in doubt, attack.” One of my favorite parts describes how Bassett charmed and won over a congressional hearing in Washington with moonshine analogies and how he lit into a powerful government representative who obviously did not know anything about JBIII. I knew most of the names in this story but did not know the complicated history. This is a well-written book, thoroughly researched, and presented in a way that makes a convoluted story understandable. Macy also does the favor of repeating facts here and there to help the reader remember important points. I could go on and on. I recommend this book to anyone.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actively hated the first half of this book, Beth Macy's well-received history/portrait of the wooden-furniture-making industry in Virginia and one family in particular, the Bassetts, whose company was once the largest such outfit in the world. My displeasure had a lot to do with the fact that the Bassetts and their ilk were all such pigs--greedy, misogynist, racist, anti-union, getting filthy rich for decades while keeping wages ridiculously low in the towns they lorded over--but also that Macy, who's not a bad writer, needed a stronger editor. Issues of tone (all over the place, with weird first-person "humorous" interjections) and repetition and pacing (which is poor, with way too much inside-baseball family rivalry replays which aren't interesting in and of themselves and never amount to anything, big-picture wise). This had a rare one- or two-star review written all over it.

But I kept reading, which tells you something about Macy's breezily engaging style, and once the book became more about globalization and free trade, as seen from the American corporate perspective, is also became more interesting, if you're into this kind of stuff. Not that the Factory Man of the title, the charismatic asshole John Bassett III, is the selfless hero he's made out to be in many reviews--he "saved" a small amount of (non-union) manufacturing jobs in the region mostly because he was given enormous amounts of money after winning an anti-dumping case against the Chinese which also made a legion of Virginia lawyers extremely rich from legal fees. Yay, the wealthy people are still wealthy! Anyway, the narrative arc of jobs lost as companies chased cheap labor overseas (first in China, then Vietnam, then Indonesia, then...), and US consumers CONSUMED, is horrifying and hateful on so many levels, but it's one of the great economic stories of the past, say, 30 years, and Factory Man does its job of adding to it.

[Drury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beth Macy has combined her skills as a reporter and writer to take the reader on a journey through the history of one of America's leading furniture-making families. Her focus rests on one member of the family who fought off the Asian furniture export market and kept his factory open, retaining a handful of employees. Seemingly heroic, he is hardly that. In reality, having won a monetary settlement in an anti-dumping campaign against the Chinese, he chose to invest in robotic machinery to permanently replace factory workers. There is the expectable depiction of greed and privilege, family members who want to stand out as characters, but aren't quite as entertaining as they think they are. Macy reminds us throughout her excellent accounting of the rise and fall of Bassett Furniture that those family members took their fortunes, made off the backs of their employees, and ran. Hundreds of thousands of factory workers have lost their jobs, with no hope of replacing them, and face destitution, if not already there. It is doubtful that their former employers give any thought to the wreckage they left behind as they fly in their private jets over the hills of southwest Virginia and North Carolina to their Florida homes or skeet shooting competitions.

[Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beth Macy clearly lays out the causes and results of the destruction of American furniture manufacturing from 2000 to the present due to the off-shoring of manufacturing to Asia. She shows the impact of the loss on the Appalachian Virginia region that depended upon the industry for its livelihood and community for generations.

Perhaps too much Bassett family history, in such detail that my head began to spin keeping track of all the J.D.s, CCs, Johns, Vaughns, and Stanleys, and all of their employees and servants and families. Whew...

But the global business intrigue was interesting when the massive lawsuit began kicking into gear in the final chapters. One thing missing that I would have liked to see was more history and detail about the craft of furniture carpentry. The loss of this specialized knowledge was one of the specters haunting the closure of these factories, so it was a shame to not have more understanding of the craftsmanship and care involved in making fine furniture, particularly in the early years.

[Clifford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have been a much better book with some balance, because the story of the Bassett family is actually very interesting. But the author's premise seems to be that globalization is evil, and so there is no time spent on what the alternative to globalization is. Furthermore, although there is some mention that what the southern furniture makers did to the northern US manufacturers is exactly the same as what the Asian manufacturers have no done, this point seems to get lost. And that's partly, I think a question of race. Somehow globalization is worse because it is ASIANs who are engaged in the lower-cost manufacturing.

The author also seems to use "Chinese Communist" as an epithet, as if the paternalism of the Bassett factory town was anything different.

What saved Vaughan-Bassett was its ability to innovate in the face of competition. That's a story worth telling, but the author relegates to what is essentially a footnote.

[Mary Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes we get lazy and accept conventional views often planted by corporate campaigns. (Examples: Charter schools are always good; high-tech landfills never leak.) Another is: Globalization and the off-shoring of U.S. manufacturing haven't hurt us that much. Beth Macy roundly wallops that claim in "Factory Man." With deep investigation into the high and low ends of furniture-making, Macy shows us, in masterful narrative, what has become of once-proud factory workers and their towns. Forget the intellectual theories of pundits. This is the down-and-dirty, the real truth of what's happened. Amazingly, this book's so entertaining, you'll be swatting at family members when they try to interrupt your reading.

[kathyrn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book succeeds on so many levels, it is more than the story of John Bassett III -- it is the story of a family, a town, a factory, an American brand name and an American way of life and work that is going away. And it goes without saying that many of the aspects depicted in these factories and company towns needed to go away but the American worker shouldn't be pushed aside and needs more champions like John Bassett. How many of us live in a town or come from a town where a factory has closed or has its work force cut dramatically? Sometimes reading a book like this can be a bit dry but the author has such an engaging writing style you feel she is personally telling you the story. Read as a netgalley copy.

[Nathan DiBagno · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember driving through Mount Airy, N.C. one time, showing the town to some colleagues who were visiting from outside the area.
We were mainly trying to showcase the more “fun” parts of the town, such as the tourism attractions for Andy Griffith fans and the open-face granite quarry, but it was hard to avoid the closed down factories. Some of them had become eyesores.
That’s the case in many of the small towns I’ve worked in and that are mentioned in Beth Macy’s book “Factory Man.” The book brings up several small towns in the rural South that were once bustling with manufacturing activity. Several of those included both Mount Airy, N.C. and Elkin, N.C. (both towns I’ve worked in), Galax, Va., Basset, Va., and Martinsville, Va. (where I once had a job interview and another time visited from my mom’s hometown of Danville, Va.). All of these are small towns or communities relatively insulated from bigger cities and all that have their own identity. All of these were once bustling with manufacturing activity and still have some of the shut-down plants.
If you live in the old Furniture Belt or anywhere close to the High Point area, you should consider reading this book. Although it focuses on the Basset empire specifically, it is a story that is part of history in much of the South.
The story of the Basset family and the growth of their little empire is well reported in “Factory Man,” from the start of the business more than a century ago. It documents the different era in which blacks and women were treated differently. Then it walks the readers through how the owners dealt with changes, such as the anti-discrimination laws. It also sounds elitist to read about the business owner paying a personal chauffeur to drive him everywhere, even in small rural communities. Macy is an excellent reporter, detailing the good and the bad equally. She’s not there to be the Basset’s personal PR assistant.
It’s interesting to remember the way old Southern towns were: often one family ran just about everything in town: the company, the churches the banks, and the real estate.
The Bassett family doesn’t hesitate to steal the furniture business from Michigan and other parts of the Midwest and bring it to the South. But they sure don’t like it when China is ready to steal it from them, and they fight back. Eventually, the family’s empire is threatened, as China and other parts of the East start to break the shackles of communism and start to go after their business. And the Chinese aren’t about to play fair, either. They are happy to record what is going on in American companies and steal their thoughts and ideas.
When the Basset family realizes they can’t compete on price, they start to take advantage of anti-dumping laws. They do have some success and manage to get the U.S. government to punish some companies for dumping, a practice in which a company exports a product at a lower price than in its own home market. But by then many jobs have been lost to the East. And by that time, now American retailers have become quite happy with these new prices, and therefore aren’t too pleased with Bassett. Also, even many manufacturers find that there are products they can make or buy cheaper overseas.
But there is a twist, though: some manufacturing jobs have come back. Employment in manufacturing bottomed out in 2010, and has since bounced back from 11.5 million employees to about 12.8 million, according to a Wall Street Journal article. That’s nowhere near what it once was, but it’s higher than we once believed. And Bassett was successful in bringing back some jobs, including reopening a plant in Elkin, N.C.
There is an interesting dialogue between John Basset and one his retailer customers, in which his customer tells him to read economist Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose.” Friedman, like most economists, tends to be pro-free trade and anti-tariffs, a concept that Basset didn’t seem to care for, quite understandably.
By most accounts, free trade does seem to make us wealthier and better off. But as Macy points out, it often does come as a cost. Martinsville had once had an unemployment rate of less than 1% in the 1960’s, but it actually witnessed an unemployment rate of as high as 24% in 1990. When President Bill Clinton was boasting about a low national unemployment rate in the 90’s, it was little comfort to Martinsville at the time.
And it wasn’t just about the loss of money. When the manufacturers closed, Macy notes that networks and communities broke down.
Macy correctly notes that the national media rarely draws attention to these small communities and to the effects of factory closings. National media that are based in Washington, D.C. live in an area that has the lowest concentration of manufacturing work. I think that many who work in the national media are often out of touch with much of the rest of the country.
Many have simply moved on, living in their bubble and considering ourselves to live it the post industrial era. But many who worked in manufacturing for years weren’t able to simply be retrained for another position. Some can’t re-invent themselves as well as other do.
None of this is to say that we shouldn’t move on. But we should take a moment to understand our fellow-citizens in smaller communities who are reminded daily about a bygone era. At the very least, it should allow us to understand their perspective a little better. It should help us remember part of the history of our country a little better.

[Jon Angell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of the destruction of American manufacturing through the lens of the American furniture manufacturing industry. It goes through some of the history and the rise, fall, and the evolution of the Bassett family of companies... and even more details about John Bassett III who put up a fight and continues to fight to maintain a small manufacturing foothold in America. Beth Macy writes a thoughtful and exhaustively researched text. She interviews servants, factory workers, old money owners, rivals, and more to give a full context to the offshoring phenomena.

I would highly recommend this book to nearly anyone as it was a relatively easily readable book that pulls the reader to continue to find out what happens next. It is a non-fiction book that reads a little like an unfolding history/business thriller with numerous humorous quips thrown in. If someone wanted to get a good grasp of how the Chinese have captured the American consumer and crushed the American worker ... this is an excellent read.