New American Blues: A Journey Through Poverty to Democracy

by Earl Shorris

A look at the daily lives of the poor in contemporary America analyzes their absence from, and apathy toward, politics and power, and suggests how they might rediscover their connection to the larger society and bring democracy to fruition. 20,000 first printing.

Genres: Education

432 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Earl Shorris was an American writer and social critic. He is best known for establishing the Clemente Course in the Humanities, named after baseball great and humanitarian Roberto Clemente. The Clemente Course is an "educational institution founded in 1995 to teach the humanities at the college level to people living in economic distress." He was critical of Western culture as "sliding towards plutocracy and materialism." Shorris published extensively on Mexico and Mexican history. Shorris made the acquaintance of Miguel León-Portilla, who published a widely-read anthology of accounts of the conquest of Mexico from Aztec viewpoints, The Broken Spears. The two subsequently published an important anthology of Mesoamerican literature, bringing to a mass market the existence of significant body of writings by indigenous Mexicans.

Reviews

[Beckysue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes you on a difficult journey, with the author, around the country to some of our poorest places. I found a lot of my assumptions about the generationally poor being changed. I became even more convinced that a liberal arts education, in the literal sense of the term (liber-liberty), is the way to create and maintain freedom.