<![CDATA[This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation]]>

false <![CDATA[This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation]]> 2880662 8 <div><div><b>America in the ’aughts—hilariously skewered, brilliantly dissected, and darkly diagnosed by the bestselling social critic hailed as “the soul mate”* of Jonathan Swift</b><br><br><div><br><br>Barbara Ehrenreich’s first book of satirical commentary, <i>The Worst Years of Our Lives</i>, about the Reagan era, was received with bestselling acclaim. The one problem was the title: couldn’t some prophetic fact-checker have seen that the worst years of our lives—far worse—were still to come? Here they are, the 2000s, and in <i>This Land Is Their Land</i>, Ehrenreich subjects them to the most biting and incisive satire of her career.<br><br><br><br>Taking the measure of what we are left with after the cruelest decade in memory, Ehrenreich finds lurid extremes all around. While members of the moneyed elite can buy congressmen, many in the working class can barely buy lunch. While a wealthy minority obsessively consumes cosmetic surgery, the poor often go without health care for their children. And while the corporate C-suites are now nests of criminality, the less fortunate are fed a diet of morality, marriage, and abstinence. Ehrenreich’s antidotes are as sardonic as they are spot-on: pet insurance for your kids; Salvation Army fashions for those who can no longer afford Wal-Mart; and boundless rage against those who have given us a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.<br><br><br><br>Full of wit and generosity, these reports from a divided nation show once again that Ehrenreich is, as Molly Ivins said, “good for the soul.”<br><br><div>—<b>*</b><i>The Times</i> (London)</div></div></div></div> 2906874 24 6 2008 This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation total:379|5:51|4:117|3:136|2:62|1:13| 379 1268 829 112 3 2 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 11 12:32:44 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 03 15:39:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Thu Aug 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 16 09:40:28 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 10:03:05 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sun Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 10 13:16:20 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 10 13:37:22 -0700 2008
The book could have been titled The Audacity of Hope - NOT!!!. Perhaps you saw the movie Happyness, starring Will Smith, in which he couldn't catch a brea...more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jul 07 20:04:17 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 25 20:07:26 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 20:04:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Aug 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 09:52:46 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 11 16:37:09 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sun Sep 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 23 05:23:47 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 10:26:32 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Aug 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 16:01:49 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 04 18:08:13 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Feb 20 12:55:22 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 20 08:46:55 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 20 12:55:22 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 3 false false Fri Jan 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 02 16:16:59 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 02 16:38:15 -0800 2009 Nickel and Dimed. It was original, clever, frightening and a total page-turner. I read it while restocking the shelves at a university bookstore, getting paid $6.50 an hour. It resonated.
But this book? What happened? Here's how I imagine it:

Publisher: we need anoth...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Feb 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 15:47:15 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 10 08:56:39 -0800 2009
I think it's because I spend so much time online, and most popular essays are about the length of a really good blog post. Unlike blog posts, however, these essays lack any kind of linkage to provide context. When...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Dec 07 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 09:00:45 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 30 08:06:14 -0800 2008
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If you were expecting a book with a solid thesis, look elsewhere; This Land is Their Land i...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 19:49:44 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 19:53:34 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed May 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 12:05:57 -0700 2009 Wed May 27 12:17:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Mon Sep 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 16 10:47:13 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 15 22:03:19 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Jul 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 17 14:30:01 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 21 11:04:07 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Sun Jan 18 09:32:03 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 18 09:36:44 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Nov 21 14:13:08 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 21 14:14:35 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jun 17 21:03:13 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 21:12:53 -0700 2009
She consistently reports on the gross disparities of class in this country. America is being polarized between the super-rich few and the sub-rich everyone else - and she continues to bring it to the forefront of all her writing.

In each...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 05:24:13 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 04:59:11 -0700 2009 Barbara Ehrenreich is preaching to the choir.

Yes, America is polarized into the haves and have-nots (with many of us in the middle sinking farther down on th...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=2880662