A provocative analysis of labor, globalization, and environmental harm by the award-winning historian and author of A History of America in Ten Strikes.
In the current state of our globalized economy, corporations have no incentive to protect their workers or the environment. Jobs moves seamlessly across national borders while the laws that protect us from rapacious behavior remain bound by them. As a result, labor exploitation and toxic pollution remain standard practice.
In Out of Sight, Erik Loomis—a historian of both the labor and environmental movements—follows a narrative that runs from the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City to the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2013. He demonstrates that our modern systems of industrial production are just as dirty and abusive as they were during the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age. The only difference is that the ugly side of manufacturing is now hidden in faraway places where workers are most vulnerable.
In this Choice Outstanding Academic Title, Loomis shows that the great environmental victories of twentieth-century America—the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the EPA—were actually union victories. Using this history as a call to action, Out of Sight proposes a path toward regulations that follow corporations wherever they do business, putting the power back in workers' hands.
"The story told here is tragic and important." —Bill McKibben
"Erik Loomis prescribes how activists can take back our country—for workers and those who care about the health of our planet." —Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Industry Reviews
Praise for Erik Loomis:
"A detailed and devastating critique by a brilliant historian."
—John Nichols, The Progressive
"The arrival of Out of Sight could not have been better timed. Erik Loomis prescribes how activists can take back our country—for workers and for those who care about the health of our planet."
—Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
"The rise of unbridled corporate power has been a disaster in so many ways—including the ability of the 1 percent to intimidate the rest of us into remaining silent lest we displease our masters. The story told here is tragic and important."
—Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy
"Erik Loomis has globalized [Upton Sinclair’s] The Jungle. He shows that the most important reason for U.S. corporations to produce abroad is to avoid the regulations that books like The Jungle produced. Perhaps Out of Sight can prompt a similar movement on behalf of workers around the world, our planetary environment, and, yes, we who wear the clothes and eat the sausage that ‘they’ produce."
—James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me
"In this dazzling overview of industrial history, Erik Loomis shows how we can—no, we must—fight for both decent jobs and a clean environment. We can do so by not letting the corporations escape ‘out of sight.’ We need to think and act as globally as corporations do, and force them to respect rights wherever they go. This book is a must-read for people who care about jobs and the environment."
—Aviva Chomsky, professor of history at Salem State University and author of Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal
"Well-written and informative . . . shows the many strong connections between workplace catastrophes, poor working conditions, diseases, and environmental disasters. Highly recommended."
—Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, Dhaka
"A passionate condemnation of the power that corporations hold over our lives, Erik Loomis shows that capitalism’s geography is a central element in class conflicts."
—Andrew Herod, Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of Georgia
"Erik Loomis shows that our systems remain broken, and it is our planet and her people, particularly the most marginalized communities, who are paying the price. However, there is hope in collective action."
—Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program
"One of the top voices chronicling the struggles of the twenty-first-century labor movement. Loomis’s blunt, witty, take-no-prisoners style always promises an exciting read."
—Sarah Jaffe
