53 pages • 1 hour read
Charles FishmanThe Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works - and How It's Transforming the American Economy
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Charles Fishman
Charles Fishman is an investigative journalist and author. Fishman began his career with The Washington Post, and went on to work as the senior editor at both the Orlando Sentinel and the News Observer. He has also written for Fast Company magazine, which he helped to found. Fishman is the author of 12 books, most notably his 2006 publication The Wal-Mart Effect, his 2011 publication The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water, his 2015 publication A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, and his most recent 2019 publication One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon. Fishman was awarded the Gerald Loeb Award three times for his business journalism. The Wal-Mart Effect was named a Book of the Year by The Economist, the Financial Times, and the editors at Amazon.com. The text has established Fishman as a leading voice in corporate investigations and journalism, and established him as an expert on understanding and explaining corporate policies, behaviors, and practices.
Fishman’s trusted and award-winning journalism has taken him everywhere “from the busiest maternity ward in the U.S. to America’s only bomb factory” (“Charles Fishman.” National Press Foundation). His investigative work is at once expansive, interrogative, and accessible. Fishman is known for the way that he translates complex corporate, economic, and business analytics into familiar language. Fishman’s conversational authorial voice humanizes his journalistic stance and makes his work palatable and approachable to a wide range of readers. Fishman earned his degree from Harvard University. His vocational, academic, and personal background have earned him a positive reputation in the industry and made him an essential voice in corporate investigations and analyses.
Literary Context: Investigative Journalism
The Wal-Mart Effect is a work of investigative journalism that specifically interrogates one corporate entity’s impact on the national and global economies, on the global supply chain, and on consumers’ expectations and shopping habits. At the time of its original publication in 2006, The Wal-Mart Effect was the first full-length work of nonfiction to examine the economic, corporate, and labor implications of Wal-Mart’s longstanding corporate policies. The text emerged on the literary market at the same time as similar works of investigative journalism, including Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. Like Fast Food Nation, The Wal-Mart Effect examines the impact that large corporations have on culture and society.
True to the investigative journalism genre, The Wal-Mart Effect marries the author Charles Fishman’s personal experiences with his investigative research, his interviews with key subjects, and his analyses of statistical data and economic trends. This range of tonal registers and formal techniques renders The Wal-Mart Effect both engaging and accessible to a diverse spectrum of readers. The 2011 release of the text includes a new Introduction by Fishman outlining the changes that Wal-Mart has implemented since the text’s original publication. This section offers nuances regarding Fishman’s overarching claims while underscoring why the book “remains so important” (xxix). While Fishman “did not coin the phrase the Wal-Mart effect,” he uses this concept in order to interrogate Wal-Mart’s often opaque policies and behaviors and to investigate the company’s far-reaching effects (“The Wal-Mart Effect.” Wikipedia). The seemingly narrow lens through which Fishman examines Wal-Mart throughout the text in fact simplifies his network of complex examinations, theories, and conjectures. The text has thus set a precedent for subsequent works of investigative journalism. Indeed, the text’s 2006 publication facilitated debates about globalization, corporate responsibility, sustainability, and labor practices that remain relevant today.
Related Titles
By Charles Fishman
