Around the Block

In Around the Block, Tom Shachtman makes Adam Smith's "invisible hand" visible in the daily life of a number of small businesses in an ordinary, middle class block in New York City. Looking at The Block's economic life over the course of a year, Shachtman explores the everyday tragedies and triumphs hidden from view behind the shop windows and in offices. Behind the abstractions of economists, a single block in the Chelsea section of Manhattan is the stage for the personal commitments and risks of small business-a father commits suicide so that his business can avoid bankruptcy; a Korean liquor store owner finds himself caught between tow worlds; a computer game programmer leaves her job and risks her career for an idea of her own. Shachtman puts a human face on the challenges that businesses weather every day. We see how small business is integral to America's national health, responsible for job growth while building social ties in a country mired by polarization. In this very human story about work and community, Tom Shachtman writes not the economics of textbooks and graphs buth the stuff of our lives.