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Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism Paperback – Bargain Price, August 4, 2009
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBloomsbury USA
- Publication dateAugust 4, 2009
- Dimensions5.49 x 0.9 x 8.31 inches
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- ASIN : B003L1ZWZI
- Publisher : Bloomsbury USA (August 4, 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 320 pages
- Item Weight : 4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.49 x 0.9 x 8.31 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,548,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9,618 in Economic History (Books)
- #14,078 in Deals in Books
- #34,213 in Industries (Books)
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About the author

Now a fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Richard C. Longworth was formerly an award-winning foreign correspondent and senior writer at the Chicago Tribune. His previous book, Global Squeeze, was lauded by Foreign Affairs as 'an engrossing study of how advanced societies grapple with the disruptive forces of global markets.' Twice a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Longworth lives in Chicago.
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By Richard C. Longworth
Reviewed by A. J. Goldsmith
What parts of our Middle West are ready for the challenges of globalization? What parts aren't?
Veteran reporter Richard C. Longworth drove more than 11,000 miles throughout the Midwestern states of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri and Ohio.
The result of his journey is a must- read book for our elected and wannabe-public officials, for university and college leaders and for the rest of us, Midwesterners who are "Caught in the Middle."
The subtitle is "America's Heartland in the Age of Globalism."
In every one of its 14 chapters, Longworth, a retired, award-winning, global correspondent for The Chicago Tribune, slays the dragons that are close to every heart in Middle America and sets out the challenges now facing us.
"By nature, Midwesterners can be aloof and uncommunicative that nature is hurting them now," the author a native of Boone, Iowa, says.
He finds that much of the region is in denial when it comes to coping with the present.
Longworth spares no feelings as he lays out what is not being done in Middle America to meet global competition, what is being ignored in this 21st century battle for economic survival and what can be accomplished if state boundaries are ignored, if universities limit competition to athletics broadening cooperation in many other areas and if truly, comprehensive planning is begun.
Longworth says: "The Midwest does two things for a living--farming and heavy industry--and globalization has turned both upside down."
The author found dying farm towns and crumbling old factory towns. Forget them, he says. Don't throw money at them. Let them go. There is a new economy to prepare for.
He spares no sympathy for Detroit and Cleveland, just two of several cities that have withered. He totally writes off many other towns that have seen their manufacturing jobs move first to southern states, then to Mexico and now to China. White collar jobs have moved to India and even to Dominican Republic.
Ann Arbor with the University of Michigan's brainpower is the new center for the auto industry, leaving Detroit far behind. Longworth says that Gary, Indiana, is a "slum" where 10 workers produce as much steel as 100 workers did 25 years ago.
"Indiana people seem to be content to be mediocre people living in mediocre cities," Longworth charges.
Dying also are Indiana's auto-industry-dependent cities of Muncie, Anderson, Kokomo and Marion.
And then there is Warsaw, Indiana, and Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the production of orthopedics is centered. High school students in Warsaw learn skills that will aid them in the production of orthopedics.
Not always negative, Longworth points to Greenville, Michigan, where 2,781 jobs were lost when Electrolux joined other companies that left earlier. Greenville only had 8,000 people. Now the first of six solar-panel plants is under construction and all are expected to be on line by 2010.
"Hundreds of rural farms are doomed. Small farms sell out when the factory jobs leave. Mega farms take their place."
Education is one key to meeting the globalization menace. Factory workers made good money and didn't value education for their children. Some can be retrained; many are too old.
Longworth writes that rural whites and urban blacks are globilization's losers; they are a new underclass.
"The new golden era is open to anyone with education, skills, imagination and creativity."
A high school education is minimal, but too much of high school is wasted especially the senior year. Why not let high school students take college courses that prepare them for the global world?
Community colleges must play a more important role in educating young people for the global world, retraining laid off workers and, importantly, teaching immigrants without whom, Longworth believes, our economy cannot function. The author cites, as examples, the small meatpacking towns in Iowa.
"The Midwest needs all the immigrants it can get. This is true of the more educated Asians and Africans and even more true of the uneducated Latinos."
Major universities must emphasize research and forget about educating undergraduates leaving that task for the smaller colleges and community colleges.
"Thirty percent of new jobs require a college or community college degree."
To my chagrin, Longworth fails to mention the amazing research that is being conducted by my alma mater, Purdue University, in a number of a different areas.
Longworth writes that the top schools need to wean themselves from state support replacing it with corporate and foundation dollars. They need to stop competing in areas where they are not truly competent and stress those areas in which they have the most expertise. They should talk to one another and do what is best for the Midwest in a global environment.
State boundaries are artificial, many decreed by the 1787 Northwest Ordinance or set after the Louisiana Purchase. The boundaries make no sense today in a globalized world.
He cites the European Union that today has blended Europe's states with a single currency and now allows unencumbered border crossings by EU residents.
The historical tensions between rural and urban interests in a state - so well-known to the Chicago metropolitan area- need to go in a time of globalization if there is to be survival. Chicago has more in common with Milwaukee than it does with such Illinois cities as Vandalia, Danville or Rock Island. Legislators seeking to balance interests within a state are doomed to failure and will never be able to meet globalization's challenge. It is better that elected officials look beyond their borders to solve interstate solutions to such mutual problems as rapid mass transit and acquiring global businesses.
There is little reason for each state in the Midwest to have individual offices seeking business in China. It would be much better if they pooled their efforts on behalf of the entire area.
As America looks forward to a 2009 presidential election, Longworth comments on the political mindset.
"In all Midwestern states like Iowa and Wisconsin, post election maps showed vast seas of rural red surrounding a few blue islands Chicago, Milwaukee, Iowa City, Cleveland and other big cities and college towns."
"The farther away an American lives from a city, the more likely he or she is to vote republican."
"Caught in the Middle" may be redundant at times, but that is because Longworth met similar problems and attitudes in the areas he visited and mindsets that were distressingly similar.
I thought that Longworth could have spent a little more time in Wisconsin. Maybe it was too cold?
Caught in the Middle. Published by Bloomsbury, USA. 2008
1058 words
Longworth doesn't address the important issues about the dumb way that the United States lurched into global markets, and as a result, he needs to find other culprits to blame for the very real pain and suffering globalization has caused in the heartland. So he essentially blames it on the victims themselves. In Longworth's view, midwesterners are "smug," "resistant to change," and have a "sense of entitlement." Is this true? Well, having lived in every region of the country at different times in my life, I don't think it is. Texans (whom I love nonetheless) are as a lot a great deal more smug than midwesterners. That Americans, as humans, are somewhat resistant to change is true. But I don't think midwesterners are culturally any more resistant to change than, say, southerners are. And the word "entitlement" is probably the most abused, misused, and now increasingly meaningless terms in our recent political vocabulary. It is a weapon used to dismiss and discredit others in too many political debates today, and does little to shed real light on our problems.
There are other problems with Longworth's argument as well. He rightly points to the reality that Americans need to be more educated to succeed in this new globalized world, but his analysis of higher education is superficial. He endorses a pie-in-the-sky plan by former University of Michigan president James Duderstadt that would turn state universities into research and graduate studies campuses only, neglecting the reality that those schools depend heavily upon undergraduate tuition dollars, and the generous donations of former undergraduates loyal to their institutions, to pay for all that research and graduate education. He praises community colleges for their "cost efficiency" in delivering education. And community colleges are a really important piece of the American education system, which provides so many options for Americans. But he ignores the implications for American higher education if the community college model becomes the dominant model of undergraduate education: CCs keep costs low by hiring armies of poorly paid adjunct instructors, most of whom receive no health care, no retirement benefits, and cannot expect to see raises for experience. We of course need bright individuals to teach at the undergraduate level, but who would pursue that route if the result was likely to be the poor wages of the CC system? He also portrays the for-proft online universities as a worthy and more adaptable competitor to traditional institutions. There is no doubt traditional institutions can learn something from their for-profit rivals (and they are). But Longworth doesn't say anything about the actual results of either CC's or For-Profits in comparison to traditional four year colleges. And the results are abysmal. The perecentage of students who start at a CC and end up with a 4-year degree a decade down the road is single digits. And the for-profits have been bleeding Federal Financial Aid programs dry, encouraging students to take out massive debt, all while producing poor results. The data clearly shows that the most successful institutions are not CCs or For-Profits, but the many non-elite, regional private non-profit colleges (which the midwest is rich with). Yet the role of non-elite regional private non-profit colleges is not even mentioned in Longworth's analysis.
There are other weaknesses as well. Longworth's argument that the midwest is burdened by its political organization into states that aren't "natural" or "logical" is unpersuasive. All state boundaries in all parts of the country are products of historical political circumstances and therefore contain diversity. Western Washington and Western Oregon share more in common with each other than their Eastern halves, for example. But is diversity in cultural, environment, and economy actually a negative thing in state organization? If it has an impact at all, it would certainly be mostly positive. That midwestern states "compete" against each other in chasing jobs in no surprise. Longworth suggests that the states would be better served if they cooperated more. This may be true, but Longworth is vague about how this would solve the region's problems--and vague about how competition between states exacerbates their problems.
Despite these flaws, Caught in the Middle is a worthwhile read. It addresses a very important problem--the plight of the midwest in the new age of globalization. Even if its explanations and many of its proposed solutions are ultimately unpersuasive, it is a book that will get you thinking.
