To look beneath the macroeconomic happy faces of soaring profits, and investigate the lives of American workers in today's economy, Juravich (labor studies, U. of Massachusetts-Amherst) interviewed in depth workers in four very different kinds of workplaces: call center representatives, operating room nurses, undocumented workers in fish processing, and displaced industrial workers. He began in 2000 and spent eight years, thus unintentionally chronicling work under the presidency of George W. Bush. In each case, he concludes, workers watched as corporate leaders made decisions to increase profits at the expense of worker welfare. The accompanying audio disk contains excerpts of the interviews and four songs composed and performed by Juravich. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)