Book review: Eli Revelle Yano Wilson, Front of the House, Back of the House: Race and Inequality in the Lives of Restaurant Workers

Abstract

The strengths of this study include its effective employment of symbolic interactionist theory to explain how knowledge exists under contest and how facts contribute little to the production and reproduction of collective memory. If this book has any faults, it is in Savelsberg’s treatment of Turkish political and social history, which is sparsely developed at best. Considering the topic, the book also fails to address the processes and machinations of nations and nationalism in the modern era, or any real comparison to other murderous ethnic cleansing events in modern history. Indeed, a chapter or two comparing different carrier groups of collective memory in different genocidal contexts (e.g. Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, etc.) would achieve much to strengthen the author’s central argument. Notwithstanding, this is an excellent study that should be of interest to cultural and political sociologists alike and would be useful in both upper division undergraduate courses and graduate courses focusing on the sociology of memory, war and conflict, and the sociology of knowledge.