Reviews

• los chinos!

  Este libro, historia de la gente de Edoardo Nesi, viene a decir que los chinos son malos porque acaban con la industria tradicional, y por lo tanto hay que movilizarse. Nesi dejó la empresa y se hizo escritor, aquí lo cuenta. Bueno, curioso.

• Premio meritato

  Un libro forse crudo ma vero, che descrivo in prima persona il declino di una città, di una società, di una industria. Da leggere assolutamente anche perché è scritto molto bene da un autore di grande cultura.

• noioso

  Ho iniziato con le migliori intenzioni. Ma non e' un libro, non e' una storia. E' in prima persona ed e' una serie di riflessioni, talvolta carine, spesso superficiali. Ho stentato a finirlo.

• The book many Italians are talking about--and saying they really like it.

  My Italian friends recommended this book to me as one of the few (or only) good books by an Italian author they've read this year. I ordered it and read the Italian version. It's also available in English translation. Honestly, I DO get why it is a best-seller and prize-winner, and why Italians identify with the author's story. Nesi has struck a raw nerve with his impassioned and heartfelt lament for the serious decline of the textile industry in his Tuscan home town of Prato--not far from Florence--where he was in charge of a factory that had been in his family for generations. Artisanal production all over Italy is losing out to global competition, and he sees no remedy. In fact the most horrible development in Prato, according to Nesi, is the importation of indentured sweat-shop workers from China to little Prato, Tuscany, toiling in unspeakable conditions in the very same factory his family once proudly created both practical and gorgeous fabrics exported all over the world. He combines his descriptions of the economic downfall of a whole city with personal soul-searching. Although I have read this very readable short book once, I am going to read it again, in case I'm missing something. Nesi confines his outcry to Prato, but couldn't this story apply to so many other tales in North America and Europe of small business and specialist product disappearance and disillusionment?

• story of an industry collapse

  I grew up seeing the city of Prato, just outside of Florence, as an example of thriving artisanal industry. Its subsequent collapse is described in the book from the viewpoint of an insider, a businessman typical of the earlier success story of Prato. I found this fascinating.

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