An exploration of that most American of industries—the fast food industry
4/23/2001
Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, begins his first book, Fast Food Nation, with a series of astounding facts about McDonald's Corporation: McDonald's operates 28,000 restaurants internationally with approximately 2,000 new restaurants opening each year; it annually hires more people than any other company; it is the world's largest owner of retail real estate; and the eye-popping statistics continue.
Schlosser then traces the fast food industry from the early days of drive-in restaurants popular in the post-WWII days of car-obsessed southern California to today's multibillion-dollar business. Along the way, we learn about the early entrepreneurs—Ray Kroc, Richard and Maurice McDonald—and their business innovations that revolutionized the food industry. Today, fast food restaurants are an integral, and seemingly innocent, part of the modern American landscape. However, in this thought-provoking book, Eric Schlosser presents his view of "the dark side of the American meal," revealing the impact that fast food has had on America's diet, economy, and workforce.