"Journalist Gary Rivlin looks at how COVID-19 and government policies affected businesses throughout the pandemic"-- Provided by publisher.
Americans extol the virtues of small, local, often family-run shops, yet buy from big-box retailers and chains that dominate the competition. Even before the pandemic, small businesses seemed endangered. When COVID-19 hit, the resounding question was: How will they be able to survive this? Rivlin focuses on the first days of the covid lockdown and the ensuing eighteen months of chaos. He examines commonly held "myths"; contradictions in government policy; enormous racial and class fissures; a national self-identity intrinsically connected to the ideal of small business, and how the decline of this American way of retail impacts our notions of American exceptionalism, community, and civic duty. -- adapted from jacket
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