Book Review: The Disposable American

New York Times reporter Louis Uchitelle is a mild and measured man, but he has hit his boiling point.

"Everyone who talks to me about the book wants to make it about finding an enemy or blaming or politics ... they don't get it, and you don't either," he says in an interview. "This is not a book about unemployment. It's simply a book that sticks to what happens to people after they've been laid off."

That is exactly what will make his new book, The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences (Knopf, March 28, $25.95, 304 pages), difficult for many to digest. He simply tells what happens to workers, blue- and white-collar alike, after they are laid off, and the stories taken together paint a picture of Americans unable to fully recover from the toll that two decades of downsizing have had on productivity and dignity. ...