Boom Town: How Wal-Mart Transformed an All-American Town Into an International Community

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Boom Town: How Wal-Mart Transformed an All-American Town Into an International Community Pub. Date: 10/1/2009 Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

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Overview

In 1950, Sam Walton, founder of the Wal-Mart empire, arrived in the Bible Belt town of Bentonville, Arkansas, and discovered that the nondescript Ozarks backwater--population 2,900 white Christians--suited him just fine. Today, six decades later, Walton’s legacy has left its mark. The Bentonville area is headquarters to not only Wal-Mart but also Tyson Foods and J. B. Hunt. The town’s population has grown to around 30,000, and the region is now home to blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Marshall Islanders, and the fastest-growing Latino population in the country.

In Boom Town: How Wal-Mart Transformed an All-American Town into an International Community, veteran journalist Marjorie Rosen explores the ever-shifting social, political, and cultural character of the United States through the microcosm that is Northwest Arkansas and the personal stories of its people. Rosen talks with a Palestinian immigrant who rose from penniless dishwasher to multimillionaire contractor--and dedicated himself to building a local Jewish community’s first synagogue. A black executive hired to diversify Wal-Mart, whose arrival coincided with a KKK rally in the town square, gives his views on the controversies surrounding the company. A Mexican mother of three, fired from a chicken plant after an injury on the job, discusses her struggle to survive. A Hindu father concerned about interracial dating, a Marshallese security guard whose daughter was ignored in the ER, and many others reveal the issues and challenges facing those who make up the “boom towns” where the economy and culture are in constant flux.

An entertaining, intimate, and often moving chronicle of how different ethnicities, races, and religions come together and struggle to adapt, Boom Town combines sociology, drama, and humanity to illustrate the unpredictable movements that shape our national persona.

What People Are Saying

Barbara Gordon

Boom Town offers up a tantalizing peek into the future and gives us a visceral sense of how the twin engines of immigration and technology are changing not just Bentonville, but small towns across America. (Barbara Gordon, filmmaker and author, I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can)

David A. Zonderman

[A] rich and perceptive book with many surprises. (David A. Zonderman, professor of history, North Carolina State University)

Doris Kearns Goodwin

In this important work, Rosen's elegant writing style, reportorial skills, and storytelling ability combine to transform the story of one small town—a fascinating tale in its own right—into a profound commentary on the recent multicultural trends that are shaping America's future. (Doris Kearns Goodwin, author, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln)

Fred Siegel

The story of the rapid urbanization of Wal-Mart's home town of Bentonville gives the reader an up-close, true to life sense of how the ethnic tensions borne of globalization are playing out on the ground. (Fred Siegel, professor of history, The Cooper Union for Science and Art, New York City)

Honor Moore

In this marvelous report from the interior, Marjorie Rosen tells the story of an American heartland where old struggles over race give way to new paradigms. A comprehensive, nuanced, and utterly surprising account! (Honor Moore, author, The Bishop's Daughter)

Judith Adler Hellman

Not to be missed is this lively account of the complex and contradictory forces that permitted Wal-Mart, the ultimate 'bad guy' corporation, to play a role in prompting radical change and the development of true diversity in a backwater of rural America. (Judith Adler Hellman, author, The World of Mexican Migrants)

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

According to Rosen (Popcorn Venus), Sam Walton's retail empire—currently facing criticism for inadequate wages, sexual discrimination, predatory pricing and pernicious environmental and overseas practices—is “the largest and most controversial U.S. corporation.” Bethany Moreton's recent and enlightening To Serve God and Wal-Mart notes that Wal-Mart plays a conspicuous role in recent transformations in American business, consumer and labor practices and their global cultural consequences. Rosen agrees, but she has come to praise, not bury, the international giant, and her far too circumscribed profile—focusing on the hometown headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., and the surrounding “boom” region it influences—emphasizes Wal-Mart's character as a generous, “surprisingly good neighbor” and engine of multiculturalism, incorporating Hindus, Muslims, Jews, African-Americans, Marshall Islanders and Latinos into “white-bread” Bible Belt communities. Rosen glosses over employee complaints, lawsuits and informed critiques of Wal-Mart's operation and conservative brand of Christian entrepreneurialism with the savvy of a public relations pro in this laudatory and utterly unbalanced portrait. (Oct.)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781556529481
Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 10/1/2009
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 1,217,630
Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Marjorie Rosen

Marjorie Rosen is an associate professor of journalism at Lehman CollegeCUNY. Her books include Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies & the American Dream and What Nigel Knew and Mia & Woody: Love and Betrayal. A former senior writer at People and editor at the New York Times Magazine, she has contributed to Glamour, Good Housekeeping, the Los Angeles Times, and Ms.

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