Kideckel's extensive fieldwork among Romania's Jiu Valley and Fagaraş coal miners, coupled with the workers' narratives quoted throughout the book, lends authority to his detailed analysis of the denigrating conditions suffered by "once celebrated" people. The regions under study were prosperous coal-producing areas that attracted a multicultural workforce. In the postsocialist era, as a transformed Romania becomes a consumer society, the miners are the "canaries in the coal mine of postsocialism," Kideckel asserts. The workers strive to maintain "a tenuous hold on life, work, family, and community" in the face of economic restructuring, privatization, and buyouts. The security and status they felt in socialist society have disappeared. This book contains many firsthand accounts from workers, grounding Kideckel's generalizations in the gritty lives endured by the miners and their families. Kideckel's contribution is the eighth in the publisher's "New Anthropologies of Europe" series. It is emblematic of the series goal to publish ethnographic manuscripts that examine topics such as globalization, ethnicity, and market reform and, at the same time, contribute to theory building in social sciences. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. - Choice