Going To Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation

by Barbara Ehrenreich

America is a grotesquely polarized society and becoming more so all the time. In this razor-sharp, funny and terrifying collection of pieces, Barbara Ehrenreich shows how the widening gap between rich and poor over the past eight years has left the country increasingly divided between the gated communities on the one hand and the trailer parks and tenements on the other. She describes a country where the super-rich travel by private jet, while low-paid workers make multiple bus trips to get to their jobs; where a wealthy minority obsessively consumes cosmetic surgery, while the poor often go without basic health care for their children; where members of the moneyed elite can buy congressmen, while a troubling proportion of the working class can barely buy lunch. Ehrenreich writes corruscatingly about the pay of CEOs, the treatment of illegal immigrants, the way Wal-Mart spies on and interrogates its employees, and the fact that in the US it's easier to get health insurance for a pet than for a child. Going to Extremes brilliantly anatomizes pre-Obama America: a nation scarred by deepening equality and corroded by distrust.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

Barbara Ehrenreich was an American author and political activist. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she was a prominent figure in the Democratic Socialists of America. She was a widely read and award-winning columnist and essayist and the author of 21 books. Ehrenreich was best known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a memoir of her three-month experiment surviving on a series of minimum-wage jobs. She was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and the Erasmus Prize.

Reviews

[Kate O'Hanlon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trite liberal blandishments don't get any more interesting when you agree with them.

May be in 2008 US wage inequality, employee abuse, off shoring, inaccessible healthcare and the meteoric rise of the super rich that depended on all this misery were new enough ideas that glib essays espousing their existences was enough. (Though I doubt it).
'Yes, and?'
Was my immediate response to most of the essays in this collection but Ehrenreich doesn't seem to have solutions more thought out that 'Complain! Resist! Organize!'
Which has been working so well.

The only piece that made me think was the one about how female participation at all levels in the abuses at Abu Ghraib should be the final death knell for the feminist myth that women's equality is a sufficient cause for a better society. More thoughtful arguments along this vein would have been welcome.

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have given it four stars, if not for the profusion of redundancy from another of her books, 'Smile or Die', which I didn't finish. Initially, I thought Smile or Die had a different author who plagiarised from this book.

Other than that, it was a quick, interesting read. Short essays that are really digestible.

I doubt I'll be looking for more of her work, but it wasn't a bad way to spend an afternoon.

[Christopher Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely topical material that becomes outdated almost as soon as they're printed: Bush, Iraq WAR, financial scandals of yore, diet trends etc. I'm normally a huge fan, and she gets so much right, but these are simply articles gleaned from her various media outlets and they don't hold up a few years later.

She's so, so wrong about diets too. It's not a black and white issue. It's not fat versus carbs. It's about balance. Talk about extremes.

[Thady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of articles - brilliant in their own way but not as coherent as her investigative books

[Sarah Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again Ehrenreich delivers a great insight into the failings of the economy.

[Tanvir Muntasim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short articles on America in the stranglehold of corporations and evangelical institutions. Her incisive and darkly humorous writing scathingly dissects the right wing thoughts and actions convincingly. Slightly dated, but still very relevant.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is collection of short stories written from an American left wing slant which many of us didn't realize existed! I recommend this book for all Fox News viewers!

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good read but really quite choppy. This wasn't the best of her books. Recommend Nickel and Dimed instead.

[Kate]

Uplifting whilst depressing. Probably best read as an American ex-pat. Love "money sticks to the rich and slides off the poor" line especially.