Situated between the foothills of Appalachia to the east and bluegrass country to the west, Nicholas County has been home to small tobacco farms in rural Kentucky for the past 200 years. But now, in the midst of tremendous economic changes generated by the movement of both textile jobs and tobacco production to other countries, residents of Nicholas County face an uncertain future. Based on twenty-five years of research, Kingsolvers longitudinal ethnography of Nicholas County, her home community, synthesizes geographical, historical, economic, and political processes that have shaped lifeways and worldviews. She documents the perspectives of farmers, factory workers, politicians, those pursuing new niches in the labor market, and middle school students in search of alternative futures. Countering stereotypes, Kingsolver emphasizes the skills and agency of rural residents and demonstrates how people in widely dispersed and seemingly isolated communities in the world are connected through capitalist logic and practice, thereby illuminating globalizations far-reaching effects.
Ann Kingsolver presents stories people have tole about NAFTA - young people and old, urban and rural, with differing political perspectives, occupations, and other markers of identity - that demonstrate their expectations and imaginations of the sweeping trade agreement. NAFTA. Kingsolver contends, both before and after its passage, became a catch-all in public discourse for tensions related to neoliberal policies and to economic and cultural processes of globalization. The storytellers in her book, from Mexico, Kentucky, and California, imagined the meaning and possible effects of regional integration on topics ranging from agriculture, to the stereotyping of workers, to national sovereignty and identity. NAFTA became invested with possibilities far beyond the scope of its literal provisions. Kingsolver analyzes the metaphorical meanings attributed to NAFTA, whether a giant truck in your rear-view mirror(in Ralph Nader's words) or a panacea for what they tell us about the changing relationship between national governments and their publics. She finds that, rather than strengthening national authority, the passage of NAFTA led to intense public questioning and deep political divi
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