Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Horchschild is a 2016 New Press publication.
Recently, there has been a rash of books published that highlight the ‘angry white American’ movement, that attempts to explain the cultural and class divisions our cou ...more
The concept of this book is exactly what I had been thinking about for the past two years. I am so grateful for Hochschild for structuring a study to investigate the political divide in the United States as evinced by Louisiana, a deeply conservative red state facing environmental degradation and wi ...more
I listened to the audio of Strangers In Their Own Land. Arlie Russell Hochschild is a self described liberal Democrat sociology professor at Berkeley. She set out to climb what she describes as the "empathy wall" for the purpose of understanding what has motivated the Republican base in the US in re ...more
Hochschild is a University of California Berkeley sociologist. She states she was attempting to understand the Great Paradox: the fact that people in the poorest states who most need federal programs consistently vote for candidates who oppose those programs. The author traveled to Louisiana one of ...more
“You are patiently standing in a long line leading up a hill, as in a pilgrimage. You are situated in the middle of this line, along with others who are also white, older, Christian, and predominantly male, some with college degrees, some not.
“Just over the brow of the hill is the American Dream, t ...more
I was attracted to this book because it promised to answer the question, "Why do the people who would seem to benefit most from "liberal" government intervention abhor the very idea?" I have puzzled with this question ever since I read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas.
I learned a lot about pollution in Louisiana from this book, but I'm not sure I learned anything new about the "deep story" of the tea-party right. It could be that I have read enough about this phenomena, both past (it swept Europe between the two Great Wars) and present, that I already had a fairl ...more
Take the Toxic Dumpster quiz, and add up your points:
1) Do you live in a state with a Republican governor (10 points)? 2) Is your state legislature controlled by the Republicans (10 points)? 3) Are you Catholic (3), Southern Baptist (5) or Pentecostal (10)? 4) Do you believe that pollution is unimporta ...more
First of all, I have to say that I absolutely admired the author’s work. It is a rarity to come across such an extremely clever, emotionally intelligent and compassionate researcher. To be honest, I always believed that sociology is pretty useless as a profession and the field of study - some hybrid ...more