Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild

She talks about the empathy wall, but here I am trying to reach across that divide and doing it by means of somebody well entrenched on my side.

I started with this book because it was recommended by the Director of the National Book Foundation, but immediately ran into a serious flaw in that recommendation: it's written by a UCBerkeley professor. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of contemporary American politics: Why do the people who would seem to benefit most from 'liberal' government intervention abhor the very idea?Ĭover image © Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los AngelesĪfter Trump won, I decided I needed to read more about the white America that I never talk to. Hochschild draws on her expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in 'red' America. Instead Hochschild finds lives ripped apart by stagnant wages, a loss of home, an elusive American dream - and political choices and views that make sense in the context of their lives. Strangers in Their Own Land goes beyond the commonplace liberal idea that these are people who have been duped into voting against their own interests.

As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets, among them a Tea Party activist whose town has been swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a drilling accident - people whose concerns are actually ones that all Americans share: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children. In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country - a stronghold of the conservative right.

Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild