Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

Alec MacGillis’s *Fulfillment* is a literary investigation into the American landscape reshaped by Amazon’s dominance. Rather than a standard corporate exposé, the book traces the geographic and social consequences of the company’s expansion, from the displacement of historic neighborhoods in Seattle to the environmental tensions in suburban Virginia and the industrial shifts in Baltimore and El Paso. By ranging across the country, MacGillis highlights a new form of inequality: the widening gap between winning and losing regions, where civic fabric unravels and labor becomes increasingly isolated and rudimentary.

The writing is empathetic and broad in scope, weaving together stories of high-paid tech workers, warehouse employees, and local politicians to illustrate the hidden human costs of contemporary capitalism. MacGillis frames Amazon not just as a retailer but as a force that remakes the nation with every click, offering an intimate account of how digital infrastructure is physically and socially restructuring the United States.

Description adapted from Open Library ↗.