I picked up this book mostly expecting an examination of the food served in fast-food restaurants. Schlosser does some of that, but to his credit he spreads his attentions much more broadly. He argues that the fast-food industry impacts far more than the American diet. Education, labor, agriculture, and to some extent the global economy have all felt fast food’s impact, rarely to good effect.

After detailing the abuses of the restaurant chains themselves, as well as their main suppliers, he writes,

The ill effects of eating fast food are bad enough, but the social disasters caused by fast-food production and marketing are hard to ignore.

Schlosser documents, statistically and anecdotally, all of the ills his call to arms mentions: the fast-food industry’s overt desire to addict children, the federal government’s willingness to subsidize skill-less jobs in the name of “job training,” the willingness of industry to sell unsafe meat (and the government’s continued inaction), the harsh and dangerous life of workers in America’s meat production plants, and the concentration of food-production power among only a few companies.

Well written, and full of compassion for those whom the industry and its suppliers assault in their quest for market share, Fast Food Nation is a wonderful piece of investigative journalism.