Hardest Times

... this is an important contribution to the area of unemployment and work. The author is to be commended for bringing to our attention the stories and experiences of men who have too often been forgotten. Whereas unemployment is frequently discussed as a rate within the context of the overall economy. Hardest times makes abundantly clear the human costs that lie behind that rate. Perhaps the height of irony is that most of the men in this study would not even be counted in such a faceless statistic since they had long ago given up actively searching for work and, by government defintion, would no longer be considered unemployed. -Contemporary Sociology This emotionally wrenching work is a much-needed reminder of the need to attend to those who are marginalized, even in the best of times. All collections. -Choice ?This emotionally wrenching work is a much-needed reminder of the need to attend to those who are marginalized, even in the best of times. All collections.?-Choice ?...this is an important contribution to the area of unemployment and work. The author is to be commended for bringing to our attention the stories and experiences of men who have too often been forgotten. Whereas unemployment is frequently discussed as a rate within the context of the overall economy. Hardest times makes abundantly clear the human costs that lie behind that rate. Perhaps the height of irony is that most of the men in this study would not even be counted in such a faceless statistic since they had long ago given up actively searching for work and, by government defintion, would no longer be considered unemployed.?-Contemporary Sociology .,. this is an important contribution to the area of unemployment and work. The author is to be commended for bringing to our attention the stories and experiences of men who have too often been forgotten. Whereas unemployment is frequently discussed as a rate within the context of the overall economy. Hardest times makes abundantly clear the human costs that lie behind that rate. Perhaps the height of irony is that most of the men in this study would not even be counted in such a faceless statistic since they had long ago given up actively searching for work and, by government defintion, would no longer be considered unemployed. -Contemporary Sociology Cottle's writing is unsparing, tough and insightful.... To my way of thinking this is his best and most mature work. Hardest Times is a major contribution to our understanding of men, of work, and of the shattering trauma that men experience when work is denied. -Robert Melson Professor Political Science Department Purdue University Tom's work brings us face to face with the lived reality of poverty and unemployment. In the midst of our current, and surely short-lived, celebration of unprecedented prosperity, we need to hear the voices Tom Cottle has recorded, if only to be better prepared for the travails that await us. -Jan Dizard Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of American Culture Amherst College The manuscript provides an insightful and sensitive account of the social and psychological consequences of unemployment, particularly during the longest economic expansion in the history of the United States, reaffirms Cottle's position as one of the more astute observers of and commentators on the poignant experiences of ordinary individuals. -Oliver Holmes Professor of Intellectual History Wesleyan University As usual, Cottle writes with an artist's skill, a social scientist's psychological and social consciousness. He is a wonderful story-teller; he catches life's subtleties, nuances, daily, hum-drum drama. He also is a skilled and thoughtful interviewer, observer, psychological analyst. He is doing important, revealing, original, and scholarly work, and doing it in a most unusual and brilliant manner. -Robert Coles James Agee Professor of Social Ethics Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities Harvard University The [book] has Cottle's usual ability to make real to a reader the subjective experiences of his respondents. It displays, too, his ability to use psychological theory to deepen the discussion so that the reader can understand why his respondents respond as they do. Cottle has always written evocatively and well, but here he has an issue about which he feels passionately, and that makes him write especially vivid. He gives voice to men and whom he has come to care about. -Robert Weiss Emeritus Professor Department of Sociology University of Massachusetts Boston Tom Cottle's newest book Hardest Times...brings something new and significant to our understanding of the problems of long term unemployment. Cottle's trenchant and penetrating portraits of unemployed men alone are worth examining as only researchers like Robert Coles, Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, Oscar Lewis and Jonathan Kozol present material in such compelling, poignant and vivid fashion.... Additionally, these portraits coupled with Cottle's enlightening and provocative theoretical analysis will make Hardest Times a notable book that will take its place among the most significant contributions to the literature on the sociology and psychology of work, male identity, bereavement and trauma. -Gerald M. Platt Professor of Sociology University of Massachusetts Amherst