The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives

This book is a heartbreaking masterpiece. Beautifully balances vivid characterizations and common sense analysis of the low-wage no-rights southern economy. Believe the blurb: it really is as good as Methland or The Unwinding, even better because of how it explains the horrible working conditions of meat packing, the dire consequences of eating cheap processed food, and the historical trends undermining decent wages and workers' right. Title says it all. Will be assigning to grad students and undergrads and giving to my brother in law.

My brother-n-law loves to read and I thought he might like to read some terrible history of our little town. I was working on the fire dept that terrible day. I’m not quite sure how someone that doesn’t really leave here or when it happened can really write a good book about the Imperial Foods plant. I have PTSD from my fir and EMS days and I plan on trying to read it when he’s finished. But again some of the photos of doors and things that where shown on tv and in newspapers were wrong. But the just of it is it rocked our little town as well as when the Terminal Hotel burned down. It was in several moves, such as Billy Bathgate.

This book is a "must read." While the vehicle for the story is the industrial disaster itself, the broader message of the subtitle "A tragic story of cheap food, cheap government, and cheap lives" is the genius of it. The other reviews here seem valid to me; I would like only to add that the hazards of deregulation cannot be overstated. Making consumer items "cheap" ultimately costs all of us much more than money.

Not only a thorough history of the fire itself, but also of the town of Hamlet, the chicken processing industry, and the Department of Labor.

This is a very well written book covering the history of Hamlet and the people. It's a tragic story but important for anyone who cares to understand how greed and corruption leads to these unfortunate happenings all across modern America with little intervention and in the case of all the lives in Hamlet this directly effected very little if any justice.

Good read. I only wish there had been more about the fire.

This book is a powerful indictment of the "cheap" world we live in today. A must read for anyone interested in the fate of working people and how we got where we are.

Just starting to read it. Book appears factual and we'll written and in excellent shape.