The Settlement: An Inner Story of the New America

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George Packer, 2013

Settlement: An Inside Story of the new America is a 2013 under the title The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America erstveröffentlichtes fiction book of the American journalist and writer George Packer . It was first published in German in 2014. Based on the biographies of various Americans, Packer addresses key factors that influenced US history between 1978 and 2012. The influencing factors considered include the financial crisis from 2007 , the decline in the US industrial base and the influence of money on US politics.

The Unwinding goes into detail about the biographies of three people. These include an industrial worker from Youngstown , Ohio who is becoming a social worker; a biodiesel -Unternehmer from North Carolina and a lobbyist in Washington, DC Interspersed in these descriptions are eleven short biographies of famous Americans, including the rapper Jay-Z , Republican Newt Gingrich , the restaurant owner Alice Waters and the entrepreneur Peter Thiel , the much was involved in the success of PayPal and Facebook .

In an interview with Public Broadcasting Service , Packer said the underlying theme of the book was the end of a “contract that said that if you work hard, if you are a good citizen, there will be a place for you, not just in In economic terms, you will have a secure life, your children will have the chance of a better life, but you will be perceived as part of the national structure, so to speak. " the fulfillment of this contract were: small locally owned businesses, unions and public schools. In his view, the void left by the decline of these institutions has only been filled with money.

Shape and style

The shape and the writing style of the book were John Dos Passos ' USA - trilogy influenced a series of three novels, which were published in the 1930s. As in the USA trilogy, in The Unwinding, longer narratives about the most important characters alternate with short biographical sketches about influential personalities from this period as well as collections of headlines and song texts.

content

Jeff Connaughton

Jeff Connaughton supported Senator Joe Biden in his various election campaigns for over a decade . Connaughton met Biden in 1979 when he was a student at the University of Alabama and invited the Senator to speak to a group of students. Connaughton was so impressed by Biden that he made a promise to support him in his campaign if the Senator ever ran for President of the United States.

After Connaughton earned a Masters degree and worked in finance for several years, Connaughton joined Biden's campaign team in 1988. When Biden resigned, Connaughton found a staff position on the Senate Legal Committee. He later worked for Abner J. Mikva , the White House legal advisor during Bill Clinton's scandalous presidency. Though Connaughton had a Washington reputation for being a Biden boy , he was personally deeply disappointed with behavior that, in his view, demonstrated Biden's ingratitude. For example, Biden refused to stand up for Connaughton when he applied to Mikva. However, when Connaughton retired from White House staff, he used his connections with Biden to pursue a career as a lobbyist. He worked for Quinn Gillespie & Associates, which represented clients such as Laurent Gbagbo , President of Ivory Coast , in the USA .

After Biden was named Vice President and Ted Kaufman took Biden's Senate seat, Connaughton began working for Kaufman. Together with Kaufman, he worked on reforming the financial system to avoid excesses such as those that led to the 2007 financial crisis . They wanted to improve the ability to prosecute financial fraud and limit the size of banks. However, their reform efforts have had limited success. Connaughton realized that the lobbyists he used to work for had more, better information and more leverage in reforms than he, who was on a senator's staff. Connaughton also came to believe that even consumer protection organizations, such as the Americans for Financial Reform group , have been massively influenced by industry lobbyists. After Kaufman's Senate term ended, Connaughton left Washington disaffected and moved to Savannah, Georgia. There he wrote a book called The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins .

A version of this section of The Unwinding was originally published in The New Yorker , where Packer was a journalist.

Dean Price

Dean Price came from a tobacco-growing family (North Carolina tradition). Dean witnessed how in the 1990s all three industries that were important to the region lost importance. During this time he opened several fast food restaurants, shops and gas stations along US Route 220. After Hurricane Katrina caused an undersupply of diesel in the region, Price became fascinated by the idea of ​​biodiesel. He believed that biodiesel made from locally grown raw materials would both help his region's farmers and avoid the catastrophic effects of running out of raw material. Together with some business partners, Price built a company that extracted biodiesel from locally grown rapeseed, which was then sold at Price's petrol stations. It was the first of its kind and caught the attention of both the local House of Representatives and the Obama administration. However, Price's restaurants and gas stations went bankrupt during the 2007 financial crisis, and Price eventually lost control of his biodiesel company as well. He started a new business converting frying oil into fuel for school buses.

Tammy Thomas

Tammy Thomas is an African American woman from Youngstown, Ohio. Because her mother was addicted to heroin, she was raised by her great-grandmother, who worked as a maid for an entrepreneurial family. From the late 1970s, Thomas experienced the profound effects of the decline of the steel industry that had dominated the local economy until then. The city's population decreased from 140,000 in 1970 to 95,000 in 1980 and was only 67,000 in 2010, while the crime rate rose sharply at the same time. Although she became a mother herself as a teenager, Tammy Thomas was the first of her family to graduate from high school.

Tammy Thomas did not want to be dependent on welfare and from 1988 worked in the Packard Electric factory, which made auto parts for General Motors. Delphi Automotive bought the company and in 2006 decided to close most of its domestic locations, including the factory in Youngstown, as part of its production relocation to Mexico. Thomas accepted a severance payment and began studying. As a social worker, she then looked after groups of citizens in upgrading their respective living environment and systematically recording the numerous vacant houses in Youngstown.

Other people

In addition to the portraits of Connaughton, Thomas, and Price, The Unwinding includes eleven shorter accounts of the following celebrities:

reception

The book had an unusual sales success in Germany (as before in the USA) in the summer of 2014 and was discussed in detail by the most important print media.

Reviews

In The New York Times Book Review, journalist David Brooks praised the book's stories as “living snapshots of people who have lost their faith,” while also criticizing the book's lack of analysis. The lack of a basic historical theory story , Brooks said, undermines the explanatory power of the book.

The Wirtschaftswoche columnist Dieter Schnaas says: “You can only read this book in its entirety or not at all. But anyone who has read it will not only have literally devoured it, but afterwards also knows an infinite amount (more) about America, capitalism and the fateful power of money. He is not better equipped with verdicts and phrases for the next capitalism discussion at dinner - but once and for all outgrown the verdicts and phrases of the bastard liberals and market apologists. "()

Awards

The Unwinding won the 2013 National Book Award for nonfiction and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

expenditure

  • George Packer: The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America , Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2013, ISBN 0-374-10241-4 .
  • George Packer: The Settlement: An Inner Story of the New America . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-10-000157-3 .

literature

Reviews

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tracking the "Unwinding" of American social institutions . In: PBS NewsHour , December 26, 2013. Retrieved on May 12, 2020.  Original quote by G. Packer according to video transcription: “a contract that said if you work hard, if you essentially are a good citizen, there will be a place for you, not only an economic place, you will have a secure life, your kids will have a chance to have a better life, but you will sort of be recognized as part of the national fabric. "
  2. ↑ Lehmann 2013
  3. ↑ Brooks 2013
  4. ↑ Schnaas 2014
  5. ↑ The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America , in: National Book Foundation website , accessed April 6, 2019