This compelling ethnographic study describes how two groups of Romanianindustrial workers have fared since the end of socialism. Once labor's elite, thecelebrated coal miners of the Jiu Valley and the chemical workers of the Fagarasregion had many social privileges and often derived genuine satisfaction from theirwork. Today, they are a rarely noted casualty of postsocialist transformations.Fear, distance, and alienation are the physical manifestations of stress experienceddue to their precarious job status, declining health, and loss of a social safetynet. Kideckel traces these issues in the context of labor, political relationships, domestic and community life, gender identities, and health. Drawing on more thanthree decades of fieldwork, he presents many narratives from select individuals, intheir own words, providing a poignant and illuminating perspective on the everydaylives of ordinary people.