Dimitra Doukas. Worked Over: The Corporate Sabotage of an American Community. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003. xii + 199 pp. ISBN 0-8014-4092-0, $39.95 (cloth); 0-8014-8861-3, $18.95 (paper).

Dimitra Doukas. Worked Over: The Corporate Sabotage of an American Community. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003. xii + 199 pp. ISBN 0-8014-4092-0, $39.95 (cloth); 0-8014-8861-3, $18.95 (paper).

Too often the social implications of the transformation from proprietary to managerial capitalism are overlooked, despite the dramatic impact that this development can have on the structure and well-being of a community. In Worked Over, Dimitra Doukas provides an interesting account of how the Mohawk River Valley in New York was affected by the sale of the Remington works from this well-known industrial family to Hartely and Graham, apparent members of the Winchester gun trust, in 1886. While the Remington family had ostensibly supported this community, Doukas contends that its new owners, and by implication all of those that followed, effectively took over political control of this valley and worked to undermine its welfare.

In many respects Doukas tells a very familiar story of the transformation of proprietary shops into modern corporations run by the principles of scientific management. As the skill level of average workers declined and control over production processes shifted toward managers, workers felt increasingly alienated. Clearly these feelings of alienation...