Putting Work in Its Place: A Quiet Revolution. Peter Meiksins & Peter Whalley. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2002. 208 pp. ISBN 0-8014-3858-6. $25.00 (cloth). We frequently hear about how expanding hours wreak havoc on personal and family life. Just reading books like The Overworked American (Schor, 1992); The Time Bind (Hochschild, 1997); and Time for Life (Robinson & Godbey, 1999) makes one tired. However, Putting Work in Its Place is different. It offers hope. Peter Meiksins and Peter Whalley interviewed many technical professionals who actually reduced their hours below the 40-hour per week standard to give more time and energy to life outside of paid work. The surprising finding is that these parttime professionals are not marginalized into a Mommy Track (Schwartz, 1989), but usually continue to contribute and be rewarded in their careers. The book is based on ethnographic interviews with 127 part-time technical professionals in Chicago and Cleveland. The respondents include 65 part-time corporate employees and 62 independent contractors working as engineers, computer professionals, and technical writers. Technical professionals were selected because they represent a major component of the global workforce that is expanding rapidly. In framing their qualitative analyses, the authors remind us that both the corporation and the home are greedy institutions. Both are jealous gods, seeking the full measure of our time, talents, and energy. In the recent past the workplace has swallowed up most men of our culture and the home has swallowed up many women. Now more women have entered the labor market and attempt to simultaneously serve both masters. The inevitable result in this win-lose game has been stress, conflict, and burnout. However, Meiksins and Whalley have discovered some temporal pioneers who have found a way to put in its place and enjoy the best of both worlds. On a parttime schedule they are able to craft interesting and rewarding professional careers, enjoy more rejuvenating time with their partner and children, as well has pursue other personal passions. The authors acknowledge the danger that parttime may tend toward greater traditionali-- zation of gender roles. Yet they find no evidence at all that these respondents got caught up in excessive domesticity. The authors introduce the term work to describe these varied reduced-hours arrangements. It is a useful term. Part-time employment has been a pejorative term, linked to the view that employees will accept reduced-status, reduced-hours employment in return for the company accommodating short-term personal needs. On the other hand, customized connotes a mind-set that to compete in today's global environment it makes sense to customize time, just as it makes sense to customize product to fit different markets. To their credit, the authors look at the gamut of reasons for customized work. It is not just for motherhood and fatherhood. It is also for dancing, theater, travel, or anything else the individual has a passion for. …