
Intern Nation
INTERN NATION
NEW IN PAPERBACK:
‘INTERN NATION: HOW TO EARN NOTHING AND LEARN LITTLE IN THE BRAVE NEW ECONOMY’
By ROSS PERLIN
Published: 1st May 2012
The first no-holds-barred expose of the exploitative world of internships
Millions of young people – and increasingly some not-so-young people – now work as interns. They famously shuttle coffee in a thousand magazine offices, legislative backrooms, and Hollywood studios, but they also deliver aid inAfghanistan, map the human genome, and pick up garbage. Intern Nation is the first exposé of the exploitative world of internships. In this witty, astonishing, and serious investigative work, ROSS PERLIN profiles fellow interns, talks to academics and professionals about what unleashed this phenomenon, and explains why the intern boom is perverting workplace practices around the world.
The hardcover publication of this book precipitated a torrent of media coverage in theUSandUK, and Perlin has added an entirely new afterword describing the growing focus on this woefully underreported story. Insightful and humorous, INTERN NATION will transform the way we think about the culture of work.
————
Praise for INTERN NATION:
“Perlin’s attempt to understand internships as a symptom of wider trends in the economy … makes the book such a fascinating read.”
– SPECTATOR
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/7044593/part_2/empty-lines-on-a-cv-.thtml
“A book that offers landmark coverage of its topic.”
– Andrew Ross, LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n10/andrew-ross/a-capitalists-dream
“A portrait of how white-collar work is changing … thought-provoking and at times jaw-dropping – almost a companion volume to Naomi Klein’s celebrated 2000 exposé of modern sweatshops, No Logo.”
– Andy Beckett, GUARDIAN
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/08/intern-nation-ross-perlin-review
“A compelling investigation of a trend that threatens to destroy “what’s left of the ordered world of training, hard work and fair compensation” … Full of restrained force and wit, this is a valuable book on a subject that demands attention.”
– OBSERVER
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/15/intern-nation-ross-perlin-review
“[An] eye-opening, welcome exposé.”
– SUNDAY TIMES
“Organizations inAmericasave $2 billion a year by not paying interns a minimum wage, writes Ross Perlin in INTERN NATION.”
– ECONOMIST
http://www.economist.com/node/18586856?story_id 586856
“Well-researched and timely.”
– DAILY TELEGRAPH
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8552716/Intern-Nation-by-Ross-Perlin-review.html
“[E]ye-opening … The book tackles a sprawling topic with earnestness and flair.”
-Katy Waldman,WASHINGTON POST
“Perlin … has an eye for polemical effectiveness.”
– TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
“A serious and extremely well-written text that offers sophisticated historical material about the origins of internship and its impact on the individuals concerned, the firms that use it and the world of work more generally.”
-CaryL. Cooper, TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION
“Perlin contends that most internships are illegal, according to the Fair Labor and Standards Act, stripping people who are employees in all but name of workers’ rights.”
– NEW YORKER
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/brieflynoted/2011/05/16/110516crbn_brieflynoted1
“‘Interns built the pyramids’, the great magazine The Baffler once declared. And that was just the beginning of their labors, as Ross Perlin demonstrates in this fascinating and overdue exposé of the wage labor without wages, the resumé-building servitude, at the heart of contemporary capitalism.”
– Benjamin Kunkel, a founding editor of N+1 and author of the novel INDECISION
“This vigorous and persuasive book … argues that the fundamental issue is the growing contingency of the global workforce.”
– Roger D. Hodge, BOOKFORUM
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/018_02/7802
“A timely book addressing the exploitation of the nation’s younger workforce under the guise of the ‘internship model.'”
– Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2011, HUFFINGTON POST
———————————
Ross Perlin is a graduate of STANFORD, SOAS, AND CAMBRIDGE, AND HAS WRITTEN FOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME MAGAZINE, LAPHAM’S QUARTERLY, GUARDIAN, DAILY MAIL and OPEN DEMOCRACY. He is researching disappearing languages inChina.
———————————
ISBN: 9781844678839 / $14.95 / £9.99 / $18.50CAN/ Paperback / 286 pages
———————————–
For more information about INTERN NATION, or to buy the book visit: http://www.versobooks.com/books/1112-intern-nation
**END**
‘Maximum levels of boredom
Disguised as maximum fun’
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)
‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo
‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk
MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski
Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic
Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com
Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com
Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski