Anger and Mourning on the American Right - Strangers in Their Own Land

The focus of this work was the empathy gap between the urban and rural communities in America. Specifically, the premise was that the two sides of American culture didn't communicate with one another, and more important, did not understand the underlying values of each. Stated more directly, from the perspective of the author (a faculty member from Berkley), Americans from urban, academic, or at least highly educated communities do not understand why individuals from rural America vote against policies and individuals that would be beneficial to them. Hoshschild does an excellent job at describing the world view of rural America, however I found myself much less empathic in the end than I did before I read the book. This was disappointing because I wanted to better understand how this could have developed in the 50 years since I grew up in a small rural community. In the end, I came to realize that the attitudes I experienced as a youth had not changed in that time - and that in many ways many rural communities are stuck in a cultural and economic cul de sac - watching the rest of America change around them. The recent election seems now to be the political equivalent of a temper tantrum. I am not sure that was where the author intended readers to go intellectually, but the attitude of the new right doesn't seem any less irrational after I read the interviews in this book. I was left with a deep feeling of discomfort for our country.

I didn't finish this book. These "strangers" won the election. It was interesting, but it doesn't help me to understand my sister and her husband, intelligent, careful people with decent jobs. Or our close friends, a wealthy, retired couple, one a Ph.D.

With incredibly clarity Hochschild dives into the emotional lives of the far right, tea party members of southwest Louisiana. If you were confused or shocked after 2016, this book is for your. If you only have scathing expletives for people who voted for Trump, this book is for you. If you can't imagine, but would like insight into why people voted the way they did, this book is for you.

Personally Hochschild was able to take me along the journey with her, in such a way as to be empathy building for myself as well. This is a post election must read for everyone all around.

I started reading this book as a way to better understand how Trump got elected. I'm not sure it really helped to answer that question, but it was still an interesting read. The author's approach of exploring the political "deep story" was engaging and approachable, and you could tell that there was a genuine attempt to achieve true understanding of opposite political perspectives.

What I found disappointing was the author's reaction to the "deep stories" that she uncovered. She showed mutual understanding -- even empathy -- but still managed to do so in a condescending, superior way.l (particularly in her distillation of lessons learned at the end). There was no consideration of how her personal political perspectives could evolve based on mutual understanding, no real beginnings of achieving compromise or consensus, nothing really *actionable* that she identified.

I felt that the book ended too soon. So, yes, she gave us great and compelling (and tragic) stories. Now what are we to do with it? She never took it there, and she should have.

I could not have picked a more relevant book almost 3 weeks before the 2016 elections. It is difficult but essential for progressives to humanize and understand the tea Perth and trump movement. This book does a great job, with humility but without compromising the author's philosophical integrity

I totally recommend this book. Although I didn't come away feeling optimistic about a solution, it helped me understand a bit better why many conservatives believe what they do. It's a beginning for me, though I've got more work to do because I still feel EXTREMELY angry about the direction the Republicans are taking our country.

Nothing new was presented but the author did try to give some perspective as to why certain groups of white people believe their concerns are not considered in the USA. It appears to come down to a belief that the world is going to end within 500 years so why worry about the environment? In addition, abortion, (in thier eyes) is a mortal sin and any support or perceived support damns them for eternity. Science doesn't appear to be a factor.

A tear-producing read that should inspire even the extreme right to re-evaluate the dangerous political powers wielded by big industry. A reminder that the destruction of Louisiana's beautiful wetlands and waterways will soon be coming to a lake, river, or aquifer near the reader's home if government can't control the abusers. An interesting take on how the former governor of Louisiana helped petrochemical companies destroy the lives of his own constituents.

This book accomplishes an important task; get to know your neighbors. Just as those on the political left keep asking each other,"How could they vote for Trump", remember, those on the right ask themselves the same question about those that voted for Clinton. The author does an excellent job exploring the underlying feelings of a white, working class area in Louisiana and their perceptions of a world that is challenging their deeply held values. They see themselves as "Strangers in their own land."

Very enlightening, especially now when one is trying to understand how people voted and why the voted as they did; Hochschild addresses why people act politically in ways that seem counter to their own needs; perhaps her work that will help us understand each other. The outcome of reading this thoughtful, deep research into individual lives is perhaps guidance for all of us on what matters to people as they make choices politically and socially.

A liberal lady from Berkeley visits Tea Party conservatives in Louisiana to chat with various families about their political views, values, and what makes them tick. From a liberal perspective, Louisiana seems to be a paradox - a state ravaged by industrialization and its resulting pollution due to a general lack of environmental protections and conservative policies, combined with stagnant wages due to lack of union power in the state. Hochschild explains how the paradox continues due to the values and identity they seem to share with the Republican party. Overall, an interesting read to understand the other side of the empathy wall.

Ms. Hochschild has bravely ventured into Lake Charles, LA to find out how people really think, and more importantly, feel about politics in America today. "Pollution is the price of capitalism," is all-too-common when jobs are at stake. I assume similar reasoning--prioritizing jobs at any cost--is at play in the northern rust belt which Mr. Trump dominated in the recent election.

I've been a big fan of Arlie Hochschild since reading "The Second Shift" in college; she does not disappoint with this book about why poor rural America votes Republican.

Never has a book been relevant to read to make sense of the current political climate. It pains me to see the country divided as much as it has since the civil war. This book gives us a better understanding of the conservative mindset. Remember, empathetic listening does not equate to endorsing a belief or normalizing the opposition; instead, it can help bring two groups to meet a common goal.

A deep dive into why some on the right vote against their interests (in this case, the polluted environment in Louisiana is the core issue). Great stories, interviews, and interesting people. The author's fact-checking appendix was a nice way to counterbalance the qualitatiative aspects of the book with quantitative realities. Only gripe was the author (or perhaps the people she interviewed) seemed to repeat herself quite a bit so that was a minor annoyance.

Very well researched analysis of how the citizen in a specific locale hold two oppositional thoughts in their minds simultaneously. The desire for a vibrant economy in a particular geographic area can lead people to make decisions that lead to reductions in their own long term well-being. Viewed from the outside, it seems that the strong attachment to land (no desire to move, families all living close by) in an environmentally fragile setting (places with little water, places with a lot of water like delta regions, or places with resources that are only accessible if the land is destroyed) lead people to make decisions that, in the long run, lead to just what they don't want - relocation, families living far apart and so on. Yet, these decisions persist in being voted for. So, it is interesting to unpack why this happens and this book is a great exploration of the reasoning.

I question whether the people rating this book 1 star even bothered to read it. To say the writing was disrespectful and bias is completely overreaching. I thought it was a beautifully written.

I'm not a writer, a critic, a scholar, or anything really. I'm just a guy from Michigan. Trying to understand why so many people seem to (in my opinion) vote against their own self interest. This really did help me understand a little more, a point of view that I just could not see. (which I believe was sort of the point)

I'm going to paste a paragraph that struck a cord with me. I feel this provides a good example of the overall tone, and the goal of finding common ground she's trying to achieve for herself, as much as for the reader..

You can read and decide for yourself how bias she is....

"In my travels, I was humbled by the complexity and height of the empathy wall. But with their teasing, good-hearted acceptance of a stranger from Berkeley, the people I met in Louisiana showed me that, in human terms, the wall can easily come down. And issue by issue, there is possibility for practical cooperation. Left and right in Congress now agree on the goal of reducing the prison population. Young conservatives are far more likely than their elders to care about the environment. The last time I saw Mike Schaff, he surprised me with another crossover issue. “Big money escalates our differences. Let’s get it out of politics— both sides!”

Russell Hochschild, Arlie. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (Kindle Locations 3845-3849). The New Press. Kindle Edition.

As a progressive this book gave me insight I never had on why the white working class who votes against their interest. The author who is a progressive went into the tea party south to get an understanding of what she calls the Great Paradox, and comes out with a better understanding without criticizing their beliefs. I would like to see a conservative do the same in a liberal state without criticizing the left. We need more civility as this author shows.

A terrifically revealing look at how southern rural folk were moved to support a campaign like Trump's, which even the people themselves understood may be against their own economic interests. A great read!

I finished this book in one day, so fascinated was I by Arlie Hochschild's trip "over the empathy wall" in her five-year-long quest to understand the deep stories of Tea Party and Trump supporters. Her work is a REVELATION to me and helps me understand my Texas cousins' views and lives. This is the book to read right now, while we are heading into this election with our nation so divided.

This book is written well, and has a great thesis i.e, Why do red states both hate the government, and rely on government resources? I may not have worded that in the best way but I'm sure there are other reviews here that will go into greater depth.

It was well written as far as the case study stories were told. But, I'm afraid this book did nothing to help me understand the far right. Empathy wall must be too high for me! This book might be great for people who don't know any far-righters, themselves, and they want a glimpse. Me, I do know them, and this book just further embedded the ideas I already gathered. They could've been the people profiled in this book. I really wanted it to help me understand their plight. But, I still just see a disturbing blindness in their point of view. I tried!

...my warmest congratulations to Arlie Russell Hochschild for taking the humane action of crossing a great cultural divide and giving voice to class war...as a radical feminist from Berkeley, i lived in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the 1980's and fell hopelessly in love with this exquisite state - a crown jewel in our country and in the world...Ms. Hochschild's analysis is as accurate for our national politics as it is for every individual, in every city, village and town in all of our states who have been affected by the deteriorating conditions in our economy -- Louisiana has the sad honor of simply being our national "canary in the mine"...you will never have to read one more study after this one...it is an exemplary call to action: talk to everyone you know whom you deeply disagree with and experience this life-enhancing, life-transforming opportunity to heal yourself and the earth...

Excellent study to try and discern why people vote against their own interests. Author befriended middle and lower middle class people in Louisiana for several years to get their point of view. She studied state government problems that shamelessly courted the oil and chemical business world that left the state government near bankrupt, the land and waterways polluted, and left other businesses (such as the seafood industry and family farms) in serious trouble.

(Spoiler Alert) Best is the metaphor that conservative voters see themselves as deserving, play-by-the-rules people, standing in line for the American Dream rewards. They hate Democrats because they have helped the undeserving lazy, the criminals, minorities, immigrants, and women to cut in line ahead of them. They think those people should go back to the end of the line. Conservatives also oppose pollution fighters like EPA that they see as just anti-jobs. Apparently they think "good jobs" are impossible without pollution. This is despite the fact that many Republicans have lost relatives, or have diseases themselves, traceable to industrial pollution. That seems to be the basis of their always voting Republican, despite the evidence that those policies are hurting them.

Arlie Hochschild has gone the extra mile, and then some, to understand conservatives. I would say that she exemplifies the (pseudo-) Indian saying, “Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins,” except that is not politically correct, so I will not say it. Nonetheless, Hochschild has spent a lot of time and effort genuinely trying to understand a group of Louisiana conservatives, and the result is a very interesting book. Sure, it’s not perfect, in part because Hochschild, like most of us, can’t fully overcome her own biases that sometimes lead her to engage in unsophisticated analysis. But she is never once contemptuous or patronizing of these people, whom she seems to really regard as her friends, and she never caricatures the individuals, who actually vary from each other quite a bit. This enables her to, overall, do an excellent job (and a better job than Joan Williams in the more recent "White Working Class," which covers very similar topics in an obtuse way).

In today’s American society, it’s easy for anyone on the Right today to understand the Left, or at least to comprehend everything the Left thinks, as well as the putative justifications for their positions. Someone who is conservative is, as soon as he reaches the age of reason, constantly bombarded with leftist history, culture and views. He absorbs them on the news, when he walks down the street, when he goes to school, when he watches any kind of television or movies. Leftist views of the world are wholly inescapable and are broadly and constantly presented as the only possible opinions. Moreover, many leftist views are simplistic, and therefore easy to absorb while requiring no engagement or thought. “Love is love is love is love.” A stupider phrase is hard to imagine, but it sure sounds good on first hearing, doesn’t it? Or “everyone should pay his fair share.” Or a zillion other such morsels of facile propaganda, which in a more educated age would have marked their user as an imbecile, but today are held up as signs of deep virtue. Conversely, a person on the Left can go his entire life never being exposed in any meaningful way to any viewpoint on the Right, other than as caricatured, irrational views he can (and usually does) dismiss without thought, and be praised for doing so, usually with a mental note “That must come from Fox News.” This imbalance in inherent bias, where the Left has it much more than the Right, makes Hochschild’s accomplishment even more notable (although she does constantly fall into the trap of using “Fox News” as a lazy shorthand for “irrational” and “erroneous,” while naturally never demonstrating anything of the kind, or suggesting there could be any doubt).

Despite her best efforts, though, Hochschild doesn’t fully succeed in understanding conservatism. She lumps anyone to the right of, say, John Kasich, into “far right”—a term that she uses so often I stopped counting at twenty-five. And she prepares for her journey into Darkest Louisiana by reading "Atlas Shrugged," a theme to which she returns at the end of the book in a hypothetical letter to “a friend on the liberal left,” where she says “Set aside Ayn Rand; she’s their guru.” I doubt very much that any of the Louisianans she talked to have read Ayn Rand, or mentioned her to Hochschild, much less are devotees of Rand’s philosophy, objectivism. Objectivism has been anathema to mainstream conservatives since Whittaker Chambers, at Bill Buckley’s behest, read Rand out of the conservative movement as a crypto-totalitarian, in 1957. Today, there are many strains of conservatism, often contradictory to each other, but Hochschild overtly treats “Tea Party” as the equivalent of a monolithic “far right,” which apparently means everyone who might stand out in Berkeley. She does not make even the basic distinction between libertarians, traditional conservatives, and Chamber of Commerce conservatives.

Of course, that distinction has now broken down, a fracture exposed by (but not created by) Donald Trump. A more fruitful dichotomy for Hochschild’s analysis would have been to view American political thought today as roughly in the form of a quadrant. In the upper left square are corporatist liberals—so called “neoliberals.” They endorse progressive social stances, but are as equally fond of open borders, globalization, and corporate hegemony. Hello, George Soros! (Are you dead yet? No? Too bad.) In the lower left square are progressive liberals—say, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. In the upper right square are corporatist conservatives—somewhat more conservative than neoliberals on some social issues (but by no means all) and generally in favor of lower taxes and less government regulation, but also fond of open borders, globalization, and corporate hegemony, and happy to have government regulation if it serves crony capitalist purposes. In the lower right square are neoreactionaries—a growing group, aggressively socially conservative, vigorously opposed to government overreach in the social sphere, but opposed to all forms of corporate hegemony and crony capitalism, and willing to not maximize GDP if it will help society as a whole, in particular disadvantaged groups. Neoreactionaries have traditionally been subordinated in (Republican) party politics to corporatist conservatives, but no longer. Think Jared Kushner vs. Steve Bannon. Hochschild’s Louisiana friends are all neoreactionaries (although some have a reflexive sympathy for corporate conservatives).

But let’s talk about the book. Hochschild divides it into two major sections. The first is an examination of what she calls the “Great Paradox,” a term she never defines precisely, but which amounts to the supposed glaring contradiction of conservatives disliking and opposing the federal government even when it can and does offer useful benefits to them of various kinds. The second is a “Deep Story,” her sociological frame for understanding the Great Paradox. Both of these are reasonable and clever ways to view the world in which she immersed herself, and she deserves a great deal of credit for them, though neither is a wholly perfect prism.

As to the Great Paradox, Hochschild repeatedly marvels that “one might expect people to welcome federal help,” given that Louisiana ranks close to dead last on important indices of health, education, and so on—but her interlocutors don’t. Rather, they loathe the federal government (and the state government, too, though they perceive it as more hands off). This is true even though, as we are repeatedly told, 44 percent of the Louisiana budget comes from federal funds (though Hochschild does not subtract taxes paid by Louisianans from that amount). The paradox results from her being unable to understand any possible solution to any problem other than via the federal government. She asks rhetorically, “If they call for smaller federal government, how do they propose to fix the problems that form part of the Great Paradox that has led me to Louisiana?” This is a false dichotomy, and suggests a lack of sophisticated thinking. In any case, within the Great Paradox, Hochschild’s primary frame, her “keyhole issue,” as she puts it, is pollution and environmental regulation. Most of the book revolves around this issue (and not, for example, around benefits such as Social Security disability).

Louisiana has a lot of heavy industry, much of it centered around the production of petroleum, petroleum derivatives, and other chemicals. Various environmental disasters have resulted, including most famously the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf in 2010, as well as two specific events Hochschild focuses on: contamination of the Bayou d’Inde by chemical waste and a sinkhole created by the rupture of a salt dome cavern underneath a lake at Bayou Corne. Hochschild gets to know people personally directly affected by these events, which have had ripple effects well beyond the immediate residents of the afflicted areas, and uses them to examine her Great Paradox.

When Hochschild refers to the Great Paradox, mostly she means that it is incomprehensible to her how the people she gets to know can loathe the federal EPA given that real environmental problems exist. But her analysis is simplistic, while that of her interlocutors is frequently sophisticated, though Hochschild thinks the reverse is true. Unlike Hochschild, her friends distinguish between the past actions of the EPA and its present actions, and they see that regulation frequently benefits the giant corporations that are supposedly regulated, at the expense of small business and individuals.

So, Hochschild notes of one man’s response to environmental regulation, “he appreciated [the] reforms—but he felt the job was largely done.” But she does not follow up or engage the implied question—whether the work is in fact largely done, and if so, what does that mean? She assumes, without any reasoning or discussion, that more federal regulation is necessary and imperative, and this should be obvious to all and sundry. But dumping occurred since the 1920s at the Bayou d’Inde, so much of the contamination occurred prior to regulation, which began in the 1970s. Hochschild makes much of the fact that illegal dumping has since occurred (at least according to one man, although she provides no evidence for that other than his word and she cites no enforcement actions against anyone)—but she does not dispute that dumping was illegal at the time, has now stopped, and in fact the Bayou d’Inde is currently being remediated. And with respect to Bayou Corne, Hochschild notes “On the books were regulations that were disregarded by both company and state.” It seems reasonable for a person to doubt that new, fresh regulations are the answer, when existing regulations have either eliminated the source of the problem or have failed in way that could not be solved by new regulations. Yet Hochschild never engages this obvious point. (We should also not forget it was Republicans who led and implemented all the environmental regulation of the 1970s; it is a myth that conservatives opposed those actions.)

She thinks she finds the answer to her paradox, through her “Deep Story” I discuss below, but there really is no paradox, at least as it relates to environmental regulation, the focus of her book. After all, we have had aggressive federal environmental regulation from the EPA for fifty years, which has gotten increasingly more aggressive, to a degree that would be unbelievable to someone from 1970, with ever diminishing returns, since the low hanging fruit was picked decades ago. Yet federal regulation has not prevented the environmental problems at Bayou d’Inde or Bayou Corne. Maybe people just realize that more regulation won’t make everything perfect, and will have its own costs, in jobs and government interference and power. After all, in 2016, when EPA personnel released millions of gallons of toxic waste into the Animas River in Colorado, the EPA tried to cover it up, refused to pay a cent for damages, and not a single person was punished in any way (and in fact staff were rewarded with cash bonuses)—although we can all be certain that if a private operator had done exactly the same thing, billions in damages would have been levied and decades of jail time handed out. Why should such an entity be trusted with more power? And, more generally, why should the federal government and its monstrous bastard child, the unaccountable administrative state, be given more power over the lives of the citizenry?

Hochschild also does not engage another way in which her interlocutors demonstrate a more sophisticated understanding than hers. She quotes, in passing, one of her friends, “I think they overregulate the bottom because it’s harder to regulate the top.” This is a powerful insight, that the burden of regulation falls on small business, although it’s not because it’s harder to regulate the top, it’s because most big corporations welcome government regulation, since they can afford compliance costs much more easily than small business and new entrants to the industry, so they benefit at the expense of smaller competitors. (The classic example is Mattel, caught importing toys from China illegally containing lead paint, pushing an ultra-expensive testing law—then getting a regulation that allows them, and only them, to test cheaply internally, while small businesses have to outsource testing on each and every toy at huge expense). Hochschild seems to not understand this at all. She keeps referring to another supposed contradiction, that lack of (some unspecified) government regulation creates monopolies that harm small businesses. She gives no examples of this, because today’s monopolies don’t exist from a failure of regulation, which does indeed prevent illegal monopolies—they exist, like the store and Google, for other economic reasons, which regulation does not address, or from regulation itself. Similarly, she claims that voting “to roll back regulation of Wall Street [is] a measure that would strengthen monopolies and hurt small business people,” when those two things are actually totally unrelated. You could imagine a legal regime that helps small business compete—but it is one that would involve less regulation, not more regulation.

So economics is not Hochschild’s strong point. Fair enough. But it is certainly a legitimate question why the people Hochschild surveys dislike the federal government so strongly, even if there is not as great a paradox as Hochschild thinks. To answer this, Hochschild develops their “Deep Story,” what she calls a “feels-as-if” story. In short, she says her friends feel like they have been standing in line for the American Dream, which is just over the hill. The line has been slow or stopped for a long time—yet they see people cutting in line, helped by the federal government. Mostly these are the non-working poor, given money by the federal government without a requirement to work., along with minorities given affirmative action, and Syrian refugees. “They are violating the rules of fairness. You resent them, and you feel that it’s right that you do.” Hochschild does not dispute that “You’re a compassionate person. But now you’ve been asked to extend your sympathy to all the people who have cut in front of you.” And you don’t feel like doing that, especially when it delays your own hardworking progress toward the American Dream. I think this is probably an accurate, if broad-stroke, summary of how a lot of neoreactionary conservatives feel, though it ignores the separate, actual and well-known costs of the regulatory state.

The American Dream is not just economic advancement, of course. An integral part of this Deep Story is the search for dignity and respect. The federal government is constantly showing contempt for these people, and their morals and values. With Democrats, it’s overt contempt for the “deplorables.” With Republicans, it’s contempt as shown by lip service for issues important to them—and then actual service to big business, in an alliance of neoliberals and corporate conservatives, usually at the expense of the little person, with private expressions of contempt for the morals and values of the little people. (See, for example, the 2015 crushing of religious freedom in Indiana by a national coalition of vicious bigots led by Marc Benioff of Salesforce, with the active cooperation of state businesses and Republican placeholders.) Hochschild is doubtless right that “everyone I was to talk with . . . felt like victims of a frightening loss—or was it theft?—of their cultural home, their place in the world, and their honor.” So they feel they are being robbed of dignity as they are pushed back in line. And they are right, on both counts.

Hochschild ultimately answers the Great Paradox by saying that she had failed to understand that “emotional self-interest” often trumps “economic self-interest.” This is true up to a point, but again it is an unsophisticated understanding. “Emotional” implies “irrational,” or at least “non-rational.” But on the very same page she cites one of her core friends, a conservative who is nonetheless an environmental activist, that “the important things were small government, low taxes, guns, and the prohibition of abortion.” These are not emotional issues—they are highly rational issues that combine economic benefit, for both the individual and the community, and moral values. Emotion, that of honor, plays a part, but even at this late point in the book Hochschild seems unable to comprehend that her Ayn Rand stereotype of economic paramountcy has no relevance to the people she’s gotten to know so well, and that they just have other values than she does, which are just as rational, if not more so.

There are also a few other false notes. The biggest one relates to guns, which for some reason constitute a miserable blind spot for liberals. Hochschild mentions guns a few times, but she does not seem to understand the critical importance to many conservatives of the issue, and the symbolic and practical importance of guns as a defense against the government and other predators. Then she compounds this by what may be the grossest mis-statements about guns ever in an actual, serious book, claiming that in Louisiana “gun vendors” are uniquely free of regulation relative to other states, and can sell to terrorists, drug addicts, juveniles, and felons freely, without background checks, and keeping no records. All this is utterly and totally false, and any decent editor should have caught it. Then she twice, in the same paragraph, refers to the gun company “Smith and Weston.” This is inexcusable and shows total failure of any close thought. (It’s “Wesson,” and it’s not obscure.)

Again to her credit, Hochschild ends her book on a positive note, saying that “the people I met in Louisiana showed me that, in human terms, the wall can easily come down. And, issue by issue, there is possibility for practical cooperation.” But what is that practical cooperation? Why, of course, it’s that conservatives can change their minds to agree with liberals, on everything from more regulation to cutting jail sentences to restricting conservative-funded speech in campaigns. The number of examples of areas the author gives where liberals should move toward conservative views? Zero. And that’s why we can’t have nice things—because, at the end of the day, Hochschild can’t bring herself to suggest there is any substantive, rather than emotional, legitimacy to a single conservative view. When someone like Hochschild concludes a book like this calling for less regulation; or rolling back gun control; or aggressive restrictions on abortion—then we’ll know that real progress is being made. I’m not holding my breath.

My overall assessment of the book is it’s OK but not great. I’ll give the author credit for at least taking the time and making an effort to figure out who the “Bible thumping redneck conservatives” are rather than simply condescendingly disparaging them as ignorant hicks and demanding that government take “proper control” of the unruly rubes. In the end though, I’m not convinced she really “gets it” – and that may be due to a degree of inability to overcome certain preconceived notions. In the early chapters she talks about the “great paradox” which to her is the fact that the people she studies (conservatives in southern Louisiana) seem to be the very ones that could benefit the most from government largess and regulation, but yet they strongly oppose much or most of it. While many of them are not particularly wealthy, it seems to me most of them aren’t what I would consider particularly poor either; though some are clearly in what most would consider the lower middle class. And some of her subjects seem to actually be pretty well off – as in upper middle class. Yet as she notes nearly all reject welfare as a solution to anyone’s plight including their own regardless of their financial situation. Similarly, she notes that, due to the heavy industry in the area (mostly oil, gas and petrochemical synthesis), it does suffer from at least some degree of environmental degradation yet most of the people she encounters have a pretty jaundiced view of the EPA, and would prefer that they would mostly just “butt out” of their lives and their region. Indeed, there are some instances of pretty severe environmental degradation but due to what I perceive as the author’s over sensitivity to environmental issues she seems to see these severe instances as perhaps a lot more pervasive than they actually are. I can’t really judge for myself, since I have never been to the region in question, though through other readings and experiences living in similar places, I believe I have at least a general idea of what it is like. What the author seems to fail to grasp – at least completely is that – as in the case of economics these people are truly proud, God fairing and independent people who genuinely feel at a disadvantage – even insecure – to whatever extent they are unable to provide for themselves. Government welfare programs, to them may provide an emergency safety net, but they DO NOT feel comfortable or secure in relying on them for anything other than as a temporary assist to be gotten rid of ASAP. And as the author does acknowledge, they see living on welfare to be a very dishonorable way of life. With regard to the environment, the people seem to accept that some negative impact to the environment is a necessary tradeoff in exchange for the many high paying jobs provided by the area’s industries. This is not to say they are comfortable with wholesale devastation of the environment, but they recognize that some of the more pristine, pastoral rural environment of the past will necessarily have to give way to the huge refineries and factories. And where there is unacceptable damage to the environment, they see the EPA as really accomplishing little in the positive, but often negatively impacting the area’s industry to the extent that it negatively impacts economic opportunity and even their own personal freedom. Yet the author’s view of the EPA seems to be that it is that it is nearly god-like, can do no wrong, and that every nit-picking regulation they come up with needs to be honored as a sacred commandment to be reverently honored.
The author also makes a lot of her analogy of the people “standing in line” to “reach the American dream” which she bases on what I see as the false premise that the economy is more or less a “fixed pie” and everyone needs to wait his turn to get a piece. Conservatives see a properly functioning free economy as providing an ever expanding number of bigger and bigger pies where, with everyone’s participation, each person has a chance at receiving his piece, without an onerous “wait” in a long line.

Another premise she has that I strongly disagree with is the notion that today’s “right” has moved much further to the right than it was say back on President Kennedy’s day. As an illustration, she notes that it was none other than Barry Goldwater’s wife who largely founded Planned Parenthood, which in those early days was a pretty non-controversial organization supported by both conservatives and liberals. Yet today, of course, the organization is strongly opposed by nearly all Christian conservatives, yet the author seems to believe that it hasn’t really changed since Goldwater’s day; it’s just that the “right” has moved so much further to the right.

In chapter 4, the author seems to suffer from downright sloppy and totally inaccurate research, despite extolling her assistants for their impeccable research in the appendices. She asserts that in Louisiana, “an unlicensed vendor can sell handguns, rifles, shotguns or assault weapons …” and further that such “gun vendor” need not keep records of gun sales and that such vendors “perform no background checks” on their firearms customers and can sell to people that are prohibited from buying guns in other states. WOW! I don’t know what constitutes a “gun vendor” in the author’s mind, but it most certainly cannot be what any of the rest of us would consider to be a gun shop, pawn shop that sells guns, or another business that sells guns to the public as an ancillary part of a larger business – not even in conservative, rural southern Louisiana! The sale and transfer of firearms is among the most HEAVILY federally regulated activities in the US. It is in fact a federal FELONY for anyone operate any business where the sales of firearms constitutes any part of the income of that business without being a valid Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) – even in Louisiana. Further it is a federal FELONY for such a business to sell any firearm of any description – new or used – to any person who has not, in the physical presence of the FFL, filled out a federal form 4473 – answering all questions truthfully under penalty of perjury for any untruthful answer, AND having the FFL clear the sale – real time by phone or internet connection – with the federal NICS (National Instant Check System) operated by the FBI in Washington and receiving an official “proceed” approval before the customer may take possession of the firearm being purchased. And contrary to popular misconception – largely spread by the irresponsible “news media” – this exact SAME procedure must be followed for any weapon sold over the internet. The seller CANNOT simply put the gun into a box and mail or express package deliver it to the customer. The transaction that physically transfers the gun MUST be done in person.

Overall, the book provides an interesting insight into “Bible belt conservatives” and the impressions of them by a basically intellectually honest – if sometimes ill informed – liberal scholar.

Ms. Hochschild has written an excellent description of the people and culture in parts of LA. It is very useful in efforts to understand the resentment, and hostility a segment of the population feel toward the direction of the country and the people who have influenced its direction of decades. Ultimately however she is only describing a portion of the population that have become alienated and she is describing the symptoms of a much deeper problem. Overcoming the root problems associated with alienation we will need to understand the causes and act on the causes not the symptoms. The world is changing and changing quickly. We need to adapt. Hopefully, our leaders will focus on understanding the issues and help us make the necessary changes rather than continue the dysfunction in Washington. The author has provided us with a valuable service with this book.

The author does an excellent job of researching and reporting on the issues that divide people politically and culturally. Trouble is, once she scales the "empathy wall", she finds a whole bunch of nonsense on the other side. Hochschild is too polite to say that directly, but she gets the point across in subtle ways by noting the many contradictions between what the people of Louisiana say are their values, and what they actually act out. A distinct foul smell runs under the comments of the "churched" folks who hate government, support corporate pollution in their backyard, and resent "the others" taking benefits. Follow that smell and it leads to good old fashioned racism.
Anyway, if you're wondering who loves Trump, this is an insightful read.
Crush them with votes for progressive candidates.

Most of the people on the far right are good people. Do not just ridicule and dismiss them. Listen to them. Get to know them. Try to understand why they so often choose paradoxical courses which are not in their best interests.Expose them to the facts. Some are deplorable, but the vast majority are not.
To me, this was the message of this scholarly and well-written book.

This book was very helpful in opening my eyes to my empathy wall. Although my mother is from the Florida panhandle, I did not have any useful route into the minds and lives of less affluent Southern whites. I also recently read J D Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy". These two books together have given me insight which I did not have before.

The author seems insincere at best. She ends the exercise without truly considering her own presumptions, and instead shows a pseudo-empathy for these 'poor creatures who, deluded as they are, still have feelings'.

Justin Gest did the same job better.

The paradox originally identified in What's The Matter With Kansas is not as paradoxical as suspected.

The Dems should read and understand this book and the frustrations that drives them.

Is Louisiana Kansas? No. Nor is Wisconsin where Kathy Cramer's book about the politics of resentment has an audience.

But all three see their worlds very much alike. And stated or not for very much the same reasons.

A lot of people claim credit for "What you see depends on where you sit." This book confirms its wisdom.

This book highlights the tragic truth that the very people who elected trump will pay the greatest cost for his presidency. They will get what they think they want-less government. And industry will destroy the land they love and likely their health and no meaningful regulation will exist to prevent it. The idea that a billionaire who made his fortune in many cases exploiting others is now going to champion a population of lower class and powerless people is illogical. Their politics, which sound like mostly veiled racism and a longing for times long since passed, will ensure the destruction of the place they love, the lifestyle they love and potentially this county as a whole which they also claim to love.

This is a curate’s egg of a book – good in parts, but, as in the original curate’s egg, the bad aspects in my view damaging the book badly.

It is written by a U. C. Berkeley sociologist, who was concerned to investigate the growing political divide in the United States. She did this by way of a detailed examination of a number of middle-aged and in some cases elderly Tea Party supporters in Louisiana. This she does well and with considerable empathy. Her chapter 15, ‘Strangers No Longer: The Power of Promise’ offers a particularly suggestive account of why the people whom she studied responded well to Trump. The strong part of her account is, indeed, her ethnography and the imaginative analysis that he offers as to why the people whom she studied felt like ‘strangers in their own land’. Things were, however, rendered rather murky by the author, when in an appendix written more recently to cover Trump-related issues, she went off into issues about the impact of robotics (and implicitly developments in software) on jobs. While this is an important issue, highly relevant to her topic (on which see, for example, Tyler Cowen’s Average is Over) it brings in as an afterthought a level of sociological analysis which was badly missing in the body of the book.

The really weak aspect of the book seemed to me to be that she chose to undertake her study by concentrating on people who were badly affected by industrial pollution, and yet who did not favour what to her seemed the obvious remedy of welcoming Federal regulation. The situation of these people may indeed seem paradoxical. But this was not a good heuristic approach. For – as became clear from her own account – the key attitudes of the people whom she studied were formed by other things, and how they related to pollution posed problems for them. But this, in itself, would seem to me a good reason for not taking this issue as a point of entry to understanding them. (It would be in the same ball-park as taking what people in When Prophecy Fails said about the failure of the world to end when they expected it to, as being the way into understanding their views!)

There is, though, more to this problem. For while the author has written an illuminating book (although why she would have thought that reading Ayn Rand would be helpful in understanding the views of the kinds of people whom she was studying, is puzzling), her own attitudes seem in some ways as blinkered as those of the people whom she was studying. She includes a kind of ‘fact correction’ appendix on views expressed by those whom she was interviewing – as if this could not be mirrored in pretty much any section of the population. While she seems utterly Pollyannaish in her ideas about Federal action – topped off by her use of Norway as a model with which to contrast Louisiana! As in fact becomes clear from between the lines of her account, her subjects had good reason to be suspicious of the consequences for people like them of well-intentioned Federal interventions, while they also had good reasons for opposing a system in which groups of people organize to try to use the state on their behalf. (She has, on page 202, a brief passage illustrating this, of a kind which is well-illuminated by ‘classical liberal class theory’: see David Hart et al Social Class and State Power.) In addition, they had experience of the total ineffectiveness of the state system of environmental regulation, and what she reports about their inability to get redress through the legal system suggests that how that operated might also be influenced by commercial interests operating politically – but not enough was said to make this clear.
Not only, however, are the views of her subjects more understandable than they might seem (although this does not mean that the reader should not feel compassion for them). But the author’s views display a kind of utopian progressivism which seems untouched by important counter-currents in academic work. This is not the place to try to offer her a catch-up. But a useful starting-point might be with some of the older literature: Pressman and Wildavsky’s Implementation, James Q. Wilson’s Bureaucracy, and – while it needs to be read with care because of often-contentious assumptions - Mueller’s Public Choice III.

All told, while at a personal level the author seems to have overcome differences in orientation from her subjects, in her substantive views – which, as a point of methodology, need to have been bracketed but which are far too obvious and intrusive – she fails badly. There has been very good work done with in some ways similar subjects where the author’s views – and judgements based on them – do not intrude (James Ault’s Spirit and Flesh is in my view an outstanding example), here the author’s own prejudices mar the book badly. That being said, it is good in parts, and the good bits are well-worth putting together with Robert Putnam’s Our Kids and Charles Murray’s Coming Apart in building up a picture of what is going on in America today.

Now that Donald Trump has won the election, it's more important than ever that progressives and liberals read this book so they can understand and be compassionate for the voters who put Trump in office.

Compassion and being willing to listen to people who don't agree with you is the basis of civil society.

As a Democrat, you can begin, right now, by understanding Republicans better and not writing them off as a "basket of deplorables."

As a Republican, you can begin, right now, by learning how to articulate yourself better than "make america great again" so that your Democratic interlocutors can understand you.

I feel that I understand a lot more clearly about the opinions of Tea Party people. I don't agree with them at all, but maybe I can tolerate their irrational opinions better now. We'll see where our country is at the end of Trump's four years.

The book is disappointing and frustrating although I believe the author truly wanted to discover the thinking of the right. One message from this book seems to be that there are some nice right wing people. Why would that be a surprise? People are complex, not usually one dimensional. However, I read through this book twice, hoping for some insight into how the right wing reaches their point of view. After pondering it, one is forced to conclude that most of their beliefs are based on incorrect information that they glean from biased news sources. For example, they greatly overestimate the numbers of people on welfare, the numbers who work for the government, etc. They also display a fatalism that is not supported by evidence, for example such statements as pollution is the price you pay for capitalism. This was my suspicion before I read the book. I wish the author had been capable of delving into why people are this easily misled and why they ignore any information that runs counter to their thoughts. The author constructs a narrative that is based on these people being frustrated by others "cutting in line" ahead of them through programs such as affirmative action, etc. There was an opportunity for the author to delve deeper here. For example, fairness is part of our evolutionary makeup, i.e. see the studies in neuroscience on monkeys detecting fairness or lack thereof. However, she could have also contrasted this with the apparent inconsistency of their religious faith. For example, in many stories in the Bible, e.g. the prodigal son, the fairness issue is called into question. In a divided country, we do need to start to listen to each other. I was hoping for some insight in this book as to how to do this better. It would seem that the answer is that one must resign themselves to listening to people who take in no real information and appear to not use critical thinking skills. Very frustrating.

I finished Strangers In Their Own Land and never, ever have I been so glad to finish a book. It has been like a millstone around my neck the entire time I was reading it. It irritated, upset, annoyed me so much that I could only read 5-6 pages at a time before I would have to put it down for a while. Why, you ask. First of all, I must state that I am and have always been from childhood, an environmentalist. This book as the result of the author's attempt to understand and develop empathy for people who are Tea Party sympathizers. She attempts to understand why they vote against their own interest in a clean environment. They may lose their house in a stinking sink hole, they may lose their health, they may see their beautiful environment turned into a lifeless cesspool of toxic waste and still vote for and elect politicians who promise to lower their taxes and get rid of government interference such as the EPA. She learns that behind their Tea Party inclinations are three bulwarks: faith, family, and honor. She follows several families and demonstrates how these bulwarks influence their choices and decisions. She bends over backwards to make these choices sound rational and reasonable. But the fact is, they are neither rational nor reasonable. The same pillars of faith, family, and honor are more applicable to a faith that leads one to cherish and care for God's creation, protecting one's family from dying of cancer from exposure to toxic chemicals, and taking pride in causing no harm to the natural world and the life that inhabits it. It is a well written, well researched book but it is still incomprehensible to me that people will knowingly poison themselves, their families and the environment around them.

I bought this book expecting to hear the story of the down and out, the working class who for decades have been pushed to the side and are now being ridiculed for the position they've found themselves in.

This book is not about that.

Arlie meets a bunch of people that come across as kind, honest, hardworking people, but she can't figure out what makes them tick. She sees a lot of pollution in the environment, and does good research into that, but she spends a lot of ink walking around the idea of "why can't I empathise with these lovely people"

It's not that it's a bad book, it's just that it came highly recommended, and I think it's fallen short of that. You'll definitely learn something from this book, but it's probably not what you expected.

Fast shipping, quality is OK even though it doesn't looks like 100% new. In this specific time this is really a book worthwhile to read. Highly recommend for students majors political science/public affairs etc.

An excellent insight into the mystery of our political divide and the seemingly irrational thought that enables it. Once again we see that reason is a capacity, not an inherent trait; a discipline which must be taught and valued.

While offering some very good insight into the mind of the political left, I don't feel the author ever made it over the "empathy wall". Very educational and vivid description of the environmental impacts in Louisiana of an industrial complex run amok. Just where was the EPA during the time span this book covers?

I enjoyed the book as it gave a perspective that I haven't thought about too much. However, I can't help but feel that her conclusion that we can find common political ground is way too optimistic. The people she described in her book are emotional attached to their support of their ideas, even though in her book she debunked the basis of those ideas. How are we supposed to reason and be critical with people that base their ideas solely on emotion? I don't see a bright light at the end of the tunnel

All the assumptions the author makes about Louisiana culture and politics are incorrect leading her to wildly incorrect conclusions. The real benefit of this book is that it allows you to see why liberals are completely unable to see any issue objectively. She has even named her lack of understanding as the "Great Paradox" as if it is a failing of the people of Louisiana rather than with her own single-sided mindset.

The book is filled with what must have been hundreds hours and hours of one-on-one interviews with people to whom the author clearly see herself as intellectually and morally superior. All the while she chides her fellow liberals for not getting out of their own "political bubble" and mix with us poverty stricken, misguided common folk down in the bayou. Although she brags about her address book full of "new friends", I am sure the author was very happy to get back to Berkeley to people she can understand.

Provided a viewpoint and the reason for it I had never before considered. I now understand where they are coming from, and why they are so resistant to considering any other answer to their problems. Lack of education and religious training that begins in the cradle "Trump's" all else.

The author makes a great case in the end for all of us to go transpolitical. The book is well written and was a quick read. If the Donald wins this election it will be mandatory reading for those seeking reasons why.

Looking for a source that helps explain why not so affluent white Southerners living near toxic waste sites (and without health insurance) are so anti-regulation, so anti-government, and so pro-Trump? Look no further than this book – timely, but also an enduring, richly informed account that gets us past the rhetorical question of “what’s the matter with Kansas?”

Troy Duster

Hochschild is not the first to attempt an analysis of why people often vote against their own interests. But "Strangers In Their Own Land" is certainly one of the best attempts this reviewer has read.

The author treats her subjects with professional, compassionate, and I believe, sincere dignity. That's a definite start for trying to bridge the contemporary and formidable political-social gap presented to American citizens. We are a polarized nation, and it's not getting better.

Hochschild, an eminent sociologist, does "exploratory research" in white Louisiana, in order to learn more about the emerging strength of the Tea Party amidst a declining economic culture that requires that almost half of its state budget be supplied by the federal government. And that, in the face of a strong local outcry against what's perceived as government "handouts," incompetence, and inefficiency. The author aims to try to solve this paradox.

In the process of her exploration, she discovers a rich social culture that relies on the traditional family, Christian religion of numerous varieties, and a form of what seems to this reader to be frank white tribalism from generations past. The region she studies has twice as many churches/capita as her home town of Berkeley, CA. And ironically, there are strong threads of gospel and other black culture that have been appropriated by whites for their religious enjoyment, even as every other indication would seem that they hold themselves separate from black society.

And the author finds herself accepted with a southern civility that was unexpected. She interviews a wide variety of residents, most of who are well aware of the damage that the energy industries have done to their state. But many remain in denial of the need to confront the perpetrators, even after losing their homes, farms, property, and livelihoods to sinkholes, spills, and other industrial insult to the land. Instead, the blame is placed on too much government or a grudging acknowledgment of past corporate abuse that supposedly has been corrected.

Hochschild retains a professional sense of neutral curiosity about all this. One thing is certain: there is a strong emotional component to southern conservative attitudes that refuses to be bridged by what others think is a logical and obvious argument about economic self-interest. Hochschild believes that "emotional self-interest" factors in just as strongly and until the rest of us understand how powerful that is, and why, to the white conservative southerner, that bridge cannot be built.

There is so much to say about this book, and not enough time or space for it here. In one way I will diverge from Hochschild's milder perspective: she tends to treat Fox News and other conservative-based media as peripheral to the phenomenon she studies. I do not. I believe that Fox alone is responsible for an incredible amount of the destructive belief system so common in the White South. As the author describes, the vast majority of that demographic uses Fox as a primary, usually only, source of information about the outside world. And their arguments parrot word-for-word those viewpoints. Residents feel that the Fox News family is their family too.

And they believe that corporations share residents' best interests because what's good for residents is good for the company. So anything bad that happens is because of government interference. They're unaware that lack of maintenance of Koch pipelines (as one example) was purposeful, and the fines they paid were expected writeoffs. This denial is largely driven by media propaganda that suppresses the information necessary to make good decisions. I believe that white southerners would have found it much easier to accept mainstream contemporary thought if they hadn't been interfered with for purposes of corporate greed.

Certainly this book does not deny that many southern whites do not fit the mold portrayed here. And it positively affirms many aspects of the culture described. This is not a book about solutions . . . it's a book about understanding.

This book made the NYTimes…6 books that explain Trumps 2016 election win. However, he author didn't choose a mid-western state, but instead, central Louisiana.
Why Louisiana? Trump didn't win because he won Louisiana.
Trump won because of the economic stress that turned against Democrats in former solid blue states, mostly in the mid-west. I've lived in the heart of the Rust Belt over the last 40 years, owned successful businesses during this time period, represented rural America in Illinois state legislature and became politically active democrat for 35 years over this time period...Democrats are getting their heads handed to them NOT because of race, bigotry, or the alleged Russian release of Clinton campaign emails...but because of the lack of economic opportunity and the screw job our domestic corporations wring out of our domestic workforce, mostly because of the institutional rule changes put in place to accommodate corporate power by the Clintons and the DLC types running the Democratic Party...
At the margin...it was the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, which has created this mess. Until Trump came along, republicans could be counted on as "Free Trade" and "Free Market" promoters. Republicans were selling a con-job but it took Clinton & Company buying into these myths that allowed the pro-corporate, rule changes to occur and the anti-labor forces to obstruct needed reforms.
The first move isn’t going ballistic over Trump, but cleaning up our own party messaging and drop kicking the divisive Majority/minority campaign strategy together with the Clintons into the ash bin of history. It's time to turn the page and move on. Making Trump's win about Louisiana is not helpful.

In the preface to her book, Ms. Hochschild writes, “I have lived most of my life in the progressive camp, but in recent years I began to want to better understand those on the right.” To that end, she spent five years researching the lives and opinions of Tea Party, Trump supporters in the heart of the Louisiana fossil-fuel/petrochemical corridor near Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The word “empathy” is used again and again throughout the book. Ms. Hochschild wants to feel what these people feel, to see the world through their eyes. Unfortunately, the closest I came to an empathetic response was disgust. Almost every man or woman interviewed in this book has been victimized by pollution, a number losing their homes and a way-of-life they hold most dear. Yet they continue to support the very industries that, with reckless disregard for consequences, caused the pollution that injured them. To an individual, they hate the federal government and the regulations imposed by the EPA.
Ms. Hochschild, I don’t suppose you’ll ever read this review. But if you should, I want you to consider a simple and very obvious truth, one you hinted at, but never directly addressed. For a hundred years, white southerners voted Democratic because a Republican ended slavery. For the next hundred years, their pitiful rationalizations aside, they will vote for pro-business, pro-rich, anti-worker Republicans because a Democrat ended segregation. And if they have to live next to that road they, themselves, call Cancer Alley, so be it.
Sorry, but I can respect that.

I enjoyed reading this, and thought the author did an excellent job covering the dreadful damage to the environment and the way in which the damage has been facilitated by the political culture. I waited as I read for the "deep story" that the author promised to find. The story turned out to be, sadly, just what I'd expected--I'd hoped for something that would indicate that more than racism and tribalism was the motivating force.

Her friends in Louisiana, however, loved the story and thought it exactly expressed their feeling. They are "in line" waiting to get to the American Dream of affluence and security--but people, Hispanics, Black Americans, women, even Muslims, are "cutting in line" ahead of them. So the big question that the author never asks is, "Who put YOU at the head of the line?" The answer, as far as I can see, is "white racial privilege." Very sad.

By hanging desperately on to their place in line and their resentment at losing it, they have lost everything, education, medical care, the environment that they remember and love. Louisiana, like West Virginia, probably can't ever be put back to a healthy natural environment. Sad.

Hochschild talked to people in Louisiana who are suffering from severe environmental degradation (poisoning, basically) but hate the EPA, who desperately need health care but hate the ACA, and who get most of their information from slanted and biased sources. It's more important now than ever that everyone in the USA try to understand one another, but Hochschild can't really help with this, what with her "empathy wall," her "deep story," and "cutting in line" metaphors. She simply does not provide an explanation for how the people with whom she converses make sense of things inside their heads. She simply cannot, for the life of her, speak of and to them in a manner that is not condescending. She calls them her "friends," but they are her research subjects, and she ought to have enough sense to see the difference.

This is one of those books where I'd like to have a two-part, split review.

I'd give Hochschild 5 stars for the listening side and 3.5 stars for the analytical side.

Since I can't, it's 4 stars, and let's discuss what she misses, or takes a pass on.

First, although she hints at the cognitive dissonance of the people she interviewed, she never spells it out. In fact, she never even uses the phrase. The closest she comes to that is using Gen. Russell Honore as a kind of a foil on environmental issues.

And, no, this is not a political science book. Nonetheless, sociology, like other social/soft sciences, can indeed engage in analysis and interpretation.

Second is the hypocrisy issue. Not so much toward the government when it's big biz doing the polluting, and the feds at least are trying to address it, even when Jindal's totally cutting state-level enforcement in Louisiana.

But, the hypocrisy of the highly religious voting to re-elect David Vitter to the Senate, when his sexual promiscuity was splashed all over non-Faux type news and surely got at least a few mentions there.

I mean, Hochschild just whiffs here. Unlike environmental issues, she doesn't even try to raise this issue in a roundabout way. And, Vitter's just a sample; just as she knows the pollution issue and red states, she knows the higher divorce rates, and related sexuality issues, along with high out-of-marriage birth rates for southern whites as well as blacks.

For those living in coastal enclaves, and wanting a sympathetic insight, perhaps the book is worth more.

But, for we liberals, let alone outright lefties, in these red states? The book tells me as much about Hochschild, in a sense, as it does her subjects. That's the only reason I didn't 3-star it overall.

This author's method raises some questions. Although she focuses closely upon a small population in southern Louisiana, she attempts to draw broad conclusions. Her sample does not seem to me to be representative of older white conservatives in general. Some aspects of her analysis are clearly related only to the conditions, historical and physical, of her chosen area of interest. Moreover, while many white conservatives live outside the area polluted by the large oil and gas producers, have no historical or family connection to the Confederate Army, and are not churched", many do share an allegiance to Fox News and other conservative media. The author fails to follow up in any detail on the influence of these right-wing sources on her target population. It is laudable that the author wants to present a more empathetic picture of the world as these people see it. But her failure to examine what appears to me to be be major influences upon their political opinions shows as much confusion concerning causes as their failure to assign blame to state and local governments and private enterprise.

The point here is not simply fiscal interest. It's not simply one desire overriding the priority of another desire. It's not about a balance of scales.

It's about cognitive dissonance. It's about denying things YOU know cognitively are true because other belief systems are in conflict with the subsequent result. It's about the power of belief over evidence in the human psyche.

The book is about the author, whose value system lies on the side of developing understanding through evidence—say, the scientific method—trying to develop empathy for others whose value system lies on the side of beliefs regardless of evidence.

What makes it powerful is that the author is an expert in the field and her journey is heartfelt. It's not easy, because the people she's trying to understand lie on the other side of an "empathy wall" that she has a lot of difficulty crossing. And her facing that difficulty is also a major theme in the book.

Those that she meets along this journey are completely aware of her mission, and yet are open and treat her with respect and kindness. This is not an adversarial effort. And THAT is also a theme.

This is a dense book. Well written, but it takes time to digest as you read. If you are used to following tweets for information, this is not the book for you. But then the subject is not either.

As someone whose liberal bubble burst when Trump won the election, I found myself asking "What the hell just happened?" and searching for answers. This book should be part of anyone's suite of resources to help understand the current state of America. After finishing Strangers..., I've gained clarity around why the far right thinks and feels the way it does, and the realization that some (not all) may actually be justified. While reading this book, I was able to put myself in their shoes and can see myself doing and feeling the same ways if I had grown up in similar circumstances.

In all, I learned a lot about the far right and a lot about myself. I couldn't recommend this book more.

This book is a slowly-paced socratic dialogue that basically casts red-state voters as lamentable dupes, while the book jacket describes it as a deeply-considered attempt to understand what they're really thinking and why. You'll get three pages of anecdote from a Tea-Party voter, then twelve pages of internet-boilerplate about why that anecdote makes no sense, or is hypocritical/inconsistent/ignorant when you consider the context. It's all packaged up in airy language and overwrought metaphors that obscure more than they illuminate. I'm about as blue-state as they come, and I wanted to learn something about people who are different than me. This book didn't help at all.

Having watched the Tea Party - Trump phenomenon with disbelief and incomprehension, I have often wanted to sit down and talk with people on the right, to discover how they can justify (what seems to me) like horrible paradoxes and discrepancies within their policies. So I was intrigued to see that Dr. Hochschild spent five years in Lake Charles, Louisiana, trying to do this exact same thing. I had had a class with her ages ago, and know her to be a very compassionate and brilliant person. She proves these traits once again with this book.

She provides easy-to-remember metaphors for how conservatives feel today -- seeing themselves as standing patiently in line for their turn at the Great American Dream, and seeing a bunch of cheaters (immigrants, women, minorities, LGBTs, etc.) cutting in front of them. She gives us 3 main groups of conservatives: the loyalists (believing what Fox News tells them, being faithful to the GOP); the believers (waiting for the rapture to provide the long-term payoff in heaven); and the cowboys (fierce independents with guns racks). She describes the Great Paradox: that so many Tea Partiers decry government intervention, taxes and regulation -- and yet often are recipients of benefits from these same programs. In fact, she outlines how red states receive a lot more handouts than blue states.

I learned so much from this book that I took careful notes, so that I will be able to use quotes from it.

If it was supposed to make me more understanding of these people, I'm not sure it worked for me. I found myself getting angrier and angrier, and wishing they could be given another chance to secede. Then we could send them all the money they need as foreign aid, and they wouldn't be able to foul our internal affairs and government.

Hochschild attempts to tread a fine line between sociological objectivity and finding empathy for her subjects. It seems like she could not decide whether she was writing an academic-lite treatise about a specific subculture, or writing a political book that could bridge a divide and find common ground between the different sides of American politics. Ultimately the book fails to illuminate much about the Tea Partiers Hocshchild interviewed, or break down the metaphorical "empathy wall" that she seems so concerned with.

The seemingly contradictory combination of Hochschild's sociological detachment and desire for empathy with her subjects results in her failing to come to grips with the (perhaps reductionist) truth that becomes obvious over the course of the book: the Tea Partiers she profiles are deeply racist, fundamentally hypocritical, and have delusional beliefs about factual reality. She shows that this is the case, but never pauses to address it head on. She alludes in passing to the subtle racism and "othering" that her subjects engage in, but avoids looking at it directly. Her much vaunted empathy leads her to produce a book which, in essence, is all about how ignorant people can be nice in person even when they espouse odious political and social views. The takeaways--that American conservatives are racist, revere the rich, and are immune to facts--aren't exactly surprising to anyone that has been paying attention for the last 40 years.

An OK book, for what it is. Writing style doesn't really hold attention well, and in this reader's opinion doesn't really deliver on the opening promise, which was to answer the question of why this group of people behaves in ways that are contrary to basic human survival instincts with regard to the polluted, devastated geography in which they live. Spends lots of time giving description of subjects, points out that they have "deep stories," fine; but the author did not successfully present evidence that these deep stories are the true core kernel that causes them to be possessed by the level of denial and lack of basic reason evidenced.

I read this book to find out why people in the middle of our country and in the South voted for Trump. That's what I found out. Along the way, it was enjoyable and entertaining.

I had already read "Hillbilly Elegy" and "The Unwinding." Hochschild, the author and a sociologist, was able to get into the minds and hearts of people in Louisiana. She was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, professor, who lived in a town on a Louisiana bayou for five years. So, she was able to open me up to understanding where these people are coming from. This is a major change in my life--now I have hope that we Americans can better understand each other.

If we are to bind up the gaping chasm between Liberals and Trump-supporters, we must understand each other. We must find common ground. I believe that there is common ground to be found if we get to know each other better.

I highly recommend "Strangers in Their Own Land."

Not a good use of my valuable time!
I bought the book because I am interested in this timely topic, and because it was very well reviewed. But I tossed it aside after about twenty pages. I was hoping for some empirically based, statically meaningful insights. I was hoping for rigorous sociology. The book turned out to be a travelogue. Granted, that's my personal opinion after only twenty pages. Others may love the book.

“Strangers In Their Own Land – Anger and Mourning on the American Right” (2016 publication; 368 pages) is the latest non-fiction book from noted sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschield. Here she decides to investigate what is driving the thinking of people on the right, in particular Tea Party supporters. (The author herself is your “typical” well-educated liberal progressive from Berkeley, yes THAT Berkeley.) And what better way to get an understanding than to “embed” herself in the deep South. Apparently the author spent huge amounts of time, spread over a period of 5 years, in specifically the state of Louisiana.

It all starts with looking into what drives the unlikely friendship between two women, one progressive, the other a Tea Party supporter, in Lake Charles, LA. From there, the author starts widening the circle of acquaintances, and the author listens, and listens, and listens some more. The stories she brings form the locals are heartfelt. Of course she explores the intricate contradictions, such as: why do so many of the locals support big business, in particular the oil and energy industry, which has nothing short of devastated Louisiana's environment and caused so much physical harm to those very same people? I don’t know that the author intended to focus so much on environmental issues when she started her research, but that is certainly hoe the book ended up. You have to read the account about the 2012 sinkhole in Bayou Corne to believe it… The heart of the book is about the “deep story” that gives a great social-economic-political insight on how the right’s thinking has evolved to where it is today. With 20/20 hindsight, it now seems inevitable that the book’s last chapter talks about the up-and-coming political phenom that is… Donald Trump. But keep in mind that this book was finished well before the 2016 primaries had concluded (and obviously also before the subsequent general election). I think you will find the author’s comments very interesting, and certainly timely.

In the end, the author pleads for a climbing of the walls of empathy, respect and listening to each other for BOTH the right and the left. Sadly, the current POTUS feels and does exactly the opposite, belittling and bullying people almost on a daily basis (and I say this as someone who traditionally leans “Republican”). All that aside, whether you are on the left or the right of the political spectrum, I would strongly encourage you to read this book. “Strangers In Their Own Land” is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

California Sociologist Hochschild, seeking to discover the emotional draw of right-wing politics, visited and eventually made friends with a number of largely Tea Party members in Louisiana. From 40 core interviews she selected 6 to profile, visiting places of birth, churches, burial plots, sharing meals etc. The first part of the book tells the story of each of those people, including their political opinions. From listening and getting to know them, Hochchild creates what she calls their "deep story” which she tells in metaphor, and checks it out with them. It has to do with waiting in line – waiting patiently for their turn at the American Dream and seeing others who seem to be unfairly cutting in ahead of them. She also creates a few individual deep self stories that fit some of them - Loyal Team Player, Renunciate Worshipper, Stoic Cowboy, Rebel with a New Cause. Then she does some historical back story from the Civil War Era of the 1860s and the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s comparing the cotton plantation of the former to the present oil plantation, leading to the pile of kindling just waiting for Trump to ignite.

She ends with perhaps the best gift of all in this book of many gifts – two letters – two letters to deal with the serious division in our country. First, a letter she might write to a friend on the liberal left, encouraging them to get to know some folks outside their "political bubble” with awareness of the “good angels” of those on the right – their patience in standing in line in scary economic times, their capacity for loyalty, sacrifice, and endurance. Then a letter she as a liberal might write to her Louisiana friends on the right beginning with empathizing on many of their issues. Then pointing out some facts (which the author summarizes in a fact check appendix) regarding what history shows the Democrats have done relative to the Republicans. Then she tells what might be the deep story of the progressives parallel to that of the right, noting that many on the left feel like strangers in their own land, too.

This is a fine, fine book and much needed today.

In Strangers in Their Own Land, Arlie Hochschild explores the question of why those who stand most to benefit from the policies of progressive politicians tend to, instead, vote for more conservative options. Hochschild, a sociologist from the University of California at Berkeley, travels to Louisiana through a connection with a former graduate student and connects with a number of different people. Hochschild notes that Louisiana is one of the most polluted states in the country and many of the subject participants interviewed have been negatively affected by pollution, yet still chose to vote for anti-EPA candidates for public office.

Hochschild meets directly with a variety of people across the state, and in the book, provides snippets of many of their lives, desires, beliefs and political opinions. Although not intended, these snapshots are ultimately the focus of the book. Hochschild attempts to weave them together to answer the major questions, but it doesn't quite work. However, she does illustrate a great talent in telling a person's story and making them seem real and connectable in just a few pages.

So, overall, the book is an okay read. The snapshops of these various Lousianans is interesting. However, the point of the book was to try to understand the answers to the main question presented. And while the questions that Hochschild pursues are interesting -- her results are lackluster. They can be summed up as a combination of parroted talking points from conservative media outlets (such as the value of capitalism, particularly as a contrast to communism, and its importance to jobs creation) that often may not be fully understood and highly devoted religious faith. While those may be the only real answers to the question they are hardly groundbreaking and perhaps not deserving of an entire book to convey.

This book is based on interviews over several years with white Tea Party members living in Louisiana's Cancer Alley, that part of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that is home to many petrochemical facilities, with severe air and water pollution. These people are nonetheless big advocates for the chemical and oil industries and unremittingly hostile toward the government, especially the EPA. To be fair to them, I'd also be very hostile toward being taxed for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, an agency that seems to exist to rubber stamp any request from an oil or chemical facility. That's just the way I feel about being taxed so that Scott Pruitt to run the federal EPA into the ground.
A scientist who addresses a local crowd about the dangers of pollution is then run off the road by members of the hostile audience while he is trying to drive home. Someone trying to maintain air monitors in a battery factory is jeered by the workers because he wears a respirator, although he can see as they laugh that their teeth have been damaged by sulphuric acid in the air. These people believe in faith-healing, a 6,000-year-old earth, speaking in tongues,and the spiritual gift of prophecy, but they dismiss climate change as stupid and environmentalists as communists and creation worshipers violating Romans 1:25. They believe that the solution to the Middle East crisis is to give everyone guns, despite the fact that Louisiana has the highest gun homicide rate in the U.S. They resent that the government cares more for the brown pelican than it cares for them (without admitting that if the government protects the air, water, fish, and coast for that brown pelican, it's also protecting their own air, water, fish, and coast, as well as the tourism and fishing industries). Even though 44% of Louisiana's budget comes from the federal government, they feel that they are taxed and their opportunities given to refugees, minorities, and welfare queens who have 7 or 8 kids. They don't need that federal money, they assert, they just need their good jobs protected from government.
In fact, these companies are huge multinationals who care about them about as much as Union Carbide cared for the Bhopal villagers or Royal Dutch Shell cares for the people living in the Niger Delta. Why don't the Cancer Alley residents rise up and insist on clean air and water for their families and compensation when their homes slide into industry-created sinkholes? Why do they believe that traditional Christian values somehow require them to live in a toxic waste dump? Why don't they band together the way Nebraskans did to save their Sand Hills? Or at least why don't they emphatically vote against those who give away their tax money and slash their education and public services budget to fund incentives to petrochemical companies? Why don't they bravely join Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré and his GreenARMY instead of showing their bravery by refusing to wear respirators?
The most eye-opening section was on "The Least Resistant Personalty", a marketing research report designed to help companies site noxious industry facilities which are noticeably ugly, smelly, carcinogenic, and depress property values, without triggering a lot of backtalk from the locals. The factors included people who were small-town residents of the South or Midwest, Catholic, high-school educated or less, big believers in the free market, strangers to activism. I think this explains more than the author's empathy wall and deep story metaphors, which I frankly found a bit annoying after awhile. The author seems to have missed some of the religious, historical, and racial context to this story, which makes insider books (like Hillbilly Elegy, for example) more illuminating. Or maybe she was just trying too hard to be empathetic.
This book did increase my empathy for the roseate spoonbill, egret, and other magnificent and irreplaceable creatures and plants of the Atchafalaya Swamp, which are in mortal danger from Louisiana's poor stewardship of its environment.

I've read several of the books written recently on the right wing and why they make such strange choices. In particular, why they would vote for Donald Trump. This is by the best of the lot, clocking in well ahead of the modest Hillbilly Elegy.

If I had to sum it up in paragraph I'd say: The folks in the middle of the country felt they lost the battles of the sixties and they never got over the pain of that loss. As a result, they were willing to do anything, including voting for Trump, in an attempt to get their sense of personal worth and dignity back. In particular, they feel that blacks, women, Hispanics and immigrants have won victories and receive government support while they have been left behind. They also believe that unregulated corporations are harmed by environmental regulations. If they have to choose between regulations and the jobs they think unregulated businesses bring them, they vote against the environment and for the corporations.

There is much more to this book, including an examination of their attitudes to work and religion. In particular, they believe liberals don't work and aren't religious.

Of course, almost everything these people believe is based on distorted facts and misconceptions. More regulations bring more jobs and better pay, most people on the left both work hard and believe in its importance, and many, though not all, on the left are deeply spiritual, but in a different way from those on the right. But none of the matters, because of the sixties. The government is neither as large or as ineffective as they believe, though of course it is very big and frequently incompetent.

This review does little to capture the power of this book, but it gives a brief outline of what it covers.

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russel Hochschild, narrated by Suzanne Toren, may offer a depressing view of the Right and their own paradoxes, but the book offers a sense of hope that the “empathy” wall can be overcome through conversation and practical cooperation. Although there were some repetitive pieces in this book and judgment peppered throughout, readers will find it informative as to why President Trump spoke to these people who felt like strangers in America, even though they were born here. As the media and political pundits and speakers push for division, the best medicine for democracy is cooperation and compromise — the middle ground.

First of all, this is a beautifully written book. It is easy to read and understand. She does make her own position and bias clear - for example, she writes that the left hasn't moved, but the right has gone further right. To a centrist like me, this is nonsense, but she is entitled to her opinion. Despite this, she recognizes the humanity of the people she interviews, and I think her version of their "deep story" is convincing. If Clinton had Hochschild as a campaign advisor, she might have won. Certainly she would have never made the dumb "basket of deplorables" remark that cost her dearly.

I've been reading my way through the why-oh-why books on the great American divide, and this is the best I've come across so far. Hochschild writes with clarity and compassion of the masses of people who feel left behind by the American dream. She describes them as having fallen farther and farther behind those lined up for a piece of the success that dream holds out to them. Blacks, women, Muslims, LGBTQ have all, so the deep story of poor white America goes, been beneficiaries of PC guilt, while they fall further down the ladder.

Big Government is nemesis, and so they align with corporate interests who shove them into a polluted muck or send their jobs out of country. Left leaners embrace values they abhor. They see those values as undermining the ties of family and friendship so important to them.

A childhood in small-town America makes all this clear to me, but with Trump in the White House, right-wing Republicans bent on shredding quality of life for the majority of Americans, science and reason replaced by dogma and greed, it is time we give more attention to finding a common story, one that works for the country and the planet. Hochschild has written an excellent book on why the American Right clings to its story. Who will write the book that finally resonates for enough Americans to turn a speeding train away from the cliff's edge?

I had seen references to this book and author, and know it is listed as a bestseller - a neighbor had a copy and recommended it so I read it. I am a member of a 'liberal' enclave and would say I am politically on the left so I know I am the 'enemy' in these folks' eyes. I spent several years growing up in the area east of Sacto. and know the people who are sometimes called the 'salt of the earth' - unforgiving, unrelenting Southern Baptists who believe in Jesus and Satan and not much else. Education and reading are frivolous pastimes and hard work and church will get you into heaven. Living a healthy or 'well-informed' life isn't what it is about - so when that phrase 'voting against their own interests' comes up, I know that 'those' interests held by liberals, like sending your children to a good school, having a healthy life and various interests, doing work that is socially or scientifically or politically valid/interesting, are NOT the interests of the people Ms. Hochschild profiled. They are NOT voting against their own interests, part of which include a wish to not to so damn poor and not live in a polluted landscape, but who still love their homes and identities, who therefore hate the 'elites' and wish them ill, who see living life like Trump does as the embodiment of what is called the 'American dream'. Those who think that if they get cancer, it is just God testing them, don't care about decent health insurance. They want to drink what they like, shoot where and what they like, eat their crawdads and fish, whether that fish is full of mercury or not. It is not that they need to be 'educated' as some of us liberals so condescendingly imagine. They do not want to be defeated. Above all, they do not want to be categorized as 'losers' in Trump's inimitable term of disapproval and scorn, they want to be on the 'winning' team, and by outwardly rejecting the federal government they can feel they are not losers and still continue to get their Medicaid, Social Security, and veteran's benefits until Jesus calls them up to that great cubic city in the sky.
So, I finished this book not feeling any more empathy toward those folks - those people who so hated Obama and Michelle not just because, you know, they're black, but because they spoke as people who went to good colleges to, who wanted everyone to have health insurance and wanted the environment to be protected. I felt sorry that their land and water were polluted, and their state and local government are weak, and that the local industries took advantage of the weak regulation there to dump toxic waste into their environment, as 'the price of capitalism'. I doubt whether any of these people would read a book that was sympathetic toward people struggling to pay their rent or working hard and trying to bring up their children in the environs of SF, Seattle or NYC either.

I didn't intend to write a review, since so many reviews already exist. I found this book both excruciatingly painful to read, and absolutely essential. The author is an anthropologist, and she used her anthropological skills to select people to interview and to follow, but used very little anthropology jargon in her text. She taped interviews and conversations, striving to find what she called their "deep story," what I would call world view: how they saw themselves, what traits they admired. What she called the empathy gap is a steep wall to cross, and I thought she did well with that. I've never been to Louisiana, but I come from a rural, mostly conservative family from another part of the country, and I think she put her finger on most of the values of the people she met. I would have put more emphasis on love of place, and on extended family—two things that make you want to stay put, even when the environment is trashed, even when there aren't any jobs. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the tea party better.

It would have been nice if the DNC and Hillary had been able to read this a year ago. The author captures much of what Donald awoke in the TP folks. (Bernie aroused some of the same issues, but with mainly a different crowd plus from a different perspective). Personally, I would have preferred it just a book about the group she was talking with, rather than inserting some of her liberal beliefs as well in doing an "analysis" For the most part I think she limited condescension. Appendix C had a lot of good information--not sure she used it in her discussions. There is definitely a big divide in our country but the roots go way back and very complicated.

It is a sad state of affairs when people are either desperate enough or greedy enough to want to rip up the land, pollute their own environment with toxins, in order to reap a short term benefit. This book provides many illustrations of this kind of disconnection between the economy and the environment not in some third world oil rich country but in the Lake Charles area of Louisiana. The author cites especially two specific instances of not long ago - PPG toxic dumping and Texas Brine sinkhole disaster - and other examples where pristine natural areas abounding in fish and wildlife were wrecked probably for generations because of loose regulation that allowed industry to basically get away with murder.

The strength of the book lies in the character studies of six people who live with the consequences of loose environmental regulation of the petrochemical companies. The central question is how can these people who have been so damaged at the same time be so accepting and so adverse to anyone who wants to put a stop to environmental degradation. The author conceives of an explanation she calls a “deep story”: a mythic kind of explanation - not too far removed from the Sisyphus myth for example - in which someone who has worked all their life patiently waits in line only to see alien people cut in line ahead of them. The history of racial discrimination dating back to the old plantation days of the 1860s plays a large role, and undoubtably there are very strong racial underpinnings. People have come to accept a division between rich and poor, and have taken on the attitude that those who wind up where they are are deserving. The government by trying to intervene to make people’s lives better upends the natural order, and therefore it becomes the target of deep resentment. Rather than looking up at the .1%, which includes Wall Street and the major corporations, for dishonoring their efforts and taking an undue share for themselves, these people look with disgust at those they perceive as only getting handouts.

Really excellent, detailed, well-researched explanation of what is going on in the minds of people who voted for Trump and a lot of others living outside America's affluent cities and suburbs. I wish this book had as good a marketing team working for it as "Hillbilly Elegy" because this one is a thousand times better and deserves all the buzz/publicity that the other book has received.

This is an excellent and valuable read for any one really wondering what happened in the presidential election of 2016.
I thought I would find an answer here that I did not, but I still have a better understanding of people who are foreign to me.
It is not a complete picture, but it's a big piece that you must include if you want to figure out what's gone wrong with America.

You might say that there are more than enough victims of stupidity to go around all sides of the political spectrum. There are victims of greed, ignorance, poverty -- and all are susceptible to being conned and manipulated by politicians of different stripes. Hochschild has done a masterful job of caring for and about the Louisianans whose stories she tells and those of us who live elsewhere should pay close attention to their plight because we are ALL susceptible to the whims of politicians greedy for power and money. Education and critical thinking skills are the best armor we can hope to don and then we have to find common ground to stand on with those who see things differently. Divided we fall.

Strangers in their Own Land
.
Arilie Russell Hochschild is a Berkeley sociologist who decided to spend some time in Louisiana, the heart of Trump country, to try to find out what is on the other side of “the empathy wall” – her term for the gap in understanding between the Progressives, the Conservatives, and the Trumpistos.
A more common term is “living in a bubble”. The left-leaning inhabitants of large cities on both coasts are “in a bubble” – isolated from knowledge of, interaction with, and insight into the concerns and interests of the “flyover states”. The listeners to Fox News are likewise “in a bubble” – their knowledge of technology, politics, and global affairs filtered through a right-wing media monopoly. The leaders of the traditional Republican Party were “in a bubble” during the election campaign, incredulous that a political outsider with no political debts or bargaining chips could highjack their party’s nomination.
Hochschild does a fine job of collecting anecdotal stories of how Louisiana’s government corruption and failure to act for its citizens has led to profound distrust of political institutions in general and government intervention or regulation in particular. Hochschild’s contacts know that they work hard, but they are not getting ahead. They read of programs from government to better the lives of blacks, women, disabled people, refugees, children of illegal immigrants, and gays. To the Louisianans that Hochschild comes to know, those who benefit from government intervention through welfare or affirmative action are seen as free-loaders and line-jumpers, unfairly benefiting from governmental pity in order to get a head start on the American Dream which is denied to long-time citizens. And here comes Trump, saying in tweets what his followers have been thinking, although they are too well-bred and polite to voice their resentments out loud.

How does one escape the bubble? How does one bridge the gap? She proposes getting to know someone who disagrees with you, and listening to their point of view. This is not so easy – most of us cannot afford to travel to Iowa or Louisiana on sociological field trips. But we must remember Margaret Mead's saying: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” So off we must go evangelizing empathy, one human contact at a time.

Can’t stand those Trump supporters? Can’t understand them? Can’s forgive them? Hochschild describes herself as a progressive Berkeley sociologist, or someone who likely would have little empathy with a Trump sympathizer from the Louisiana bayou. Recognizing the existence of an “empathy barrier” (her term), she travels to the bayou to meet its people and understand why they think, behave, and vote so “irrationally”. She writes a sympathetic although not altogether forgiving account. I recommend this book to anti-Trump friends, but most prefer to stay on their side of the empathy wall rather than venture where Hochschild intrepidly visits. Good read that will not bore you with dull scholarship, although in truth, I think Hochschild’s scholarship is very good.

Very sympathetic to people who no longer recognize the society in which they live. Change is inevitable and so is resistance to change. What disturbs me is that resistance to change and acceptance to change as become a sign of moral depravity. Perhaps this has always been so. This book does nothing to help me to deal with what may be the eternal truth that all value systems are tribal.

What explains the disaffected American who feels left behind by the new economy? Sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild sought understanding in one of the poorest regions of the United States, south Louisiana. The strength of the book is the in-depth interviews of people affected by and coping with pollution and social change.
The book is replete with disturbing information about the extent of environmental degradation throughout south Louisiana. Hochschild supports horror stories willingly shared by her research subjects with well-documented data and citations. One of the most interesting short essays in the book appears in Appendix C, where Hochschild debunks some of the most widely believed canards about government, the environment, and social issues that she heard during her interviews. Read more at bookmanreader.blogspot.com .

A readable, compassionate, and serious attempt to understand the roots of our partisan political split. The author journeys from Berkeley into Lake Charles, Louisiana, and explores what the world looks like to white people who live and work and retire there, with an eye towards explaining how intelligent, compassionate people support policies and candidates and social outlooks that are viewed as anything but. Like any good book, the conclusions are too big to be drawn into a sentence, but Hochschild arrives at an explanation that seems to resonate: these Americans view themselves as working hard and independently, playing within the rules, going nowhere, and yet receiving nonstop slights and insults for who they are, while seeing others seemingly cheat, prosper without work and by dependence and victimhood. The description of the personal stories is moving, and the relaying of a point of view is valuable. Hochschild comes from an area of vast good intentions, idealism, and sincerity, and she does backflips to avoid calling out ignorance and bigotry. I'm afraid that I am not so generous.

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild

“Strangers in Their Own Land” is an empathetic investigative research of the Tea Party. Renowned sociologist and retired professor at U.C. Berkely, Arlie Russell Hochschild takes the reader on a journey deep into the Louisiana bayou to find out why people from such conservative parts vote against their own best interest. This revealing 370-page book includes sixteen chapters broken out by the following four parts: 1. The Great Paradox, 2. The Social Terrain, 3. The Deep Story and the People In It, and 4. Going National.

Positives:
1. A well-written, engaging book.
2. A fascinating topic, understanding people who support the Tea Party.
3. Russell Hochschild’s empathy and sense of fairness shines throughout. She is focused on trying to get at the heart of the matter in a respectful manner and succeeds.
4. Defines key terms that help the reader understand the author’s point of view from a sociologist perspective. “An empathy wall is an obstacle to deep understanding of another person, one that can make us feel indifferent or even hostile to those who hold different beliefs or whose childhood is rooted in different circumstances.”
5. Interesting observations. “And the more that people confine themselves to likeminded company, the more extreme their views become.”
6. One of the key themes of this book is trying to understand the irony of the positions that Tea Partiers held. “Virtually every Tea Party advocate I interviewed for this book has personally benefited from a major government service or has close family who have.” Bonus, “I came to realize that the Tea Party was not so much an official political group as a culture, a way of seeing and feeling about a place and its people.”
7. Makes good use of other significant observations made by other authors and applies it to her case study. “In What’s the Matter With Kansas? Frank argues that people like Mike are being greatly misled. A rich man’s “economic agenda” is paired with the “bait” of social issues. Through appeal to abortion bans, gun rights, and school prayer, Mike and his like-minded friends are persuaded to embrace economic policies that hurt them. As Frank writes, “Vote to stop abortion: receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. . . . Vote to get government off our backs; receive conglomeration and monopoly everywhere from media to meat packing. Vote to strike a blow against elitism, receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes.” His beloved fellow Kansans, Frank argues, are being terribly misled.”
8. Facts spruced throughout the book. “…one-third of all seafood consumed across the nation came from the Gulf of Mexico, and two-thirds of that from Louisiana itself.” Bonus, “a startling 2012 study by sociologist Arthur O’Connor that showed that residents of red states suffer higher rates of industrial pollution than do residents of blue states. Voters in the twenty-two states that voted Republican in the five presidential elections between 1992 and 2008—and who generally call for less government regulation of business—lived in more polluted environments.”
9. Environmental issues play a prominent role in this book and it’s discussed from various angles. “The general talk around town was that the choice was between the environment and jobs.”
10. The three main reasons Tea Partiers do not like the federal government. “Indeed, Tea Party adherents seemed to arrive at their dislike of the federal government via three routes—through their religious faith (the government curtailed the church, they felt), through hatred of taxes (which they saw as too high and too progressive), and through its impact on their loss of honor, as we shall see.”
11. A look at some of the politicians that represent Louisiana and their agenda. “Boustany voted to cut funds for the Environmental Protection Agency, to block fuel-efficiency standards for cars, to ban federal fracking safeguards, to halt Clean Air Act protections for smog, soot, and mercury pollution, and to gut the core of the Clean Water Act—the federal “floor” of water quality standards that states must meet. He voted to redefine “healthy air,” basing the definition of it on the feasibility and cost to polluting industries, and not on human health.” Also from General Russel Honoré, “I have nothing against oil and gas making money in Louisiana,” the General begins matter-of-factly. “But the oil companies need to clean up after themselves, and they haven’t. They need to fix what they break, and they haven’t. And pretty much theirs is the only voice we hear.”
12. The impact of deregulation in Louisiana. “Governor Jindal advocated the free market and small government—Mike had voted for him on those very grounds. He had cut public services, lowered funds for environmental protection, and installed pro-industry “protectors.” The state hadn’t functioned to protect the residents of Bayou Corne at all and, in the minds of some, had even absorbed the main blame for the sinkhole, just as Lee had absorbed the blame for PPG’s pollution of Bayou d’Inde.”
13. The topic of faith also plays a prominent role. “The National Association of Evangelicals is a voice for its 30,000,000 members, who make up a quarter of the American electorate, and a leading organization of the religious right with a political voice. This is true too of the Christian Coalition, which supported some 36 senators and 243 members of the House of Representatives, half of whom received a score of 10 percent or lower on the environmental scorecard of the League of Conservation Voters.”
14. The impact of Fox News. “Fox News Business Network commentator Lou Dobbs commented in 2011 that “as it’s being run now, [the EPA] could be part of the apparat of the Soviet Union.” One woman’s favorite commentator, Charles Krauthammer, compared the rise in EPA air quality standards to an “enemy attack” on America. Fox offers no less news on the environment than did CNN or CNBC, but its oratory was inflammatory. Yet the words tyranny, apparat, terrorist, and strangler did not come up in my talks with Tea Party embracers in Louisiana.”
15. A fascinating look at what triggers the extremes of the political spectrum. “For the left, the flashpoint is centered in the private sector; for the right, in the public sector. Ironically, both call for an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.”
16. Legacies that fueled the right, historical perspectives. “The 1960s and 1970s set off a series of social movements, which, to some degree, shuffled the order of those “waiting in line” and laid down a simmering fire of resentment which was to flame up years later as the Tea Party. During this era a long parade of the underprivileged came forward to talk of their mistreatment—blacks who had fled a Jim Crow South, underpaid Latino field workers, Japanese internment camp victims, ill-treated Native Americans, immigrants from all over. Then came the women’s movement. Overburdened at home, restricted to clerical or teaching jobs in the workplace, unsafe from harassment, women renewed their claim to a place in line for the American Dream. Then gays and lesbians spoke out against their oppression. Environmentalists argued the cause of forest animals without forests. The endangered brown pelican, flapping its long, oily wings, had now taken its place in line.”
17. Honest assessments. “As strangers in their own land, Lee, Mike, and Jackie wanted their homeland back, and the pledges of the Tea Party offered them that. It offered them financial freedom from taxes, and emotional freedom from the strictures of liberal philosophy and its rules of feeling. Liberals were asking them to feel compassion for the downtrodden in the back of the line, the “slaves” of society. They didn’t want to; they felt downtrodden themselves and wanted only to look “up” to the elite.”
18. An excellent appendix titled, “Fact-Checking Common Impressions”. “Eight percent of the total 2014 U.S. budget was devoted to “welfare”—benefits that are income-needs based.”

Negatives:
1. Did Arlie Hochschild really explain the great paradox to the reader? I wasn’t completely satisfied. I think she was respectful to a fault and described the issues accurately but never really gets to the bottom of it.
2. There is some repetition.
3. I felt the author was fair and struck a respectful chord, however, I get the feeling that people from the political right will find this book too left leaning or stereotypical. More an observation than a negative.
4. There were some topics left on the table. Was the author seeking to change minds? Did she succeed?

In summary, this was a very sound and respectful sociological study of the Tea Party in the Louisiana bayou. Russell Hochschild does a wonderful job of capturing the essence of what makes Americans from this region of the country think and act the way they do. She immerses herself into the topic and in doing so helps the public gain a better understanding of her subjects. A very good book, I recommend it!

Further suggestions: “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” by Thomas Frank, “White Working Class” by Joan C. Williams, “White Trash” by Nancy Isenberg, “Twilight of the Elites” by Chris Hayes, “Democracy in Chains” by Nancy MacLean, “The New Minority” by Justin Gest, and “Nomadland” by Jessica Bruder.

Hochschild's book is a masterwork of friendship, respect, and empathy. It reinforces what my mother taught us always to remember: "Most people do the best they can." As someone who grew up in the Scandinavian-influenced upper midwest, with its long history of progressivism, I recommend this book to all "blue-staters" and "coastal dwellers" on the left. Personal warmth, family life, close-knit community---these are values that benefit everyone. My Danish "deep story" may vary from folks on the bayou, but important values remain the same and can help us to bridge the gaps. Call it "hygge" or "down-home friendliness", the element that ties us to others is vital to healthy living, thriving communities, and a strong nation.

I have a lot of respect for Professor Hochschild but her work here does not address the elephant in the room. I was impressed with her description of the lives of the people she met and the paradox she analyzes related to the environmental disasters they tolerate on behalf of their political views. However, so much of Louisiana history and culture is about racism. While it is not possible to address everything in one 300 page book, an academic should know better than to refer to brown-skinned "line cutters" -- and empathize with those who use such euphemisms -- without providing the broader context. In rural Louisiana, people of color have been systematically stripped of their rights and property. Their economic problems and social status are then used as evidence against them. This is a political strategy that has worked well for some Louisiana elites for more than 150 years. Inadvertently, Hochchild's book feeds into the current right wing narrative that members of the white Christian working class are the "forgotten" and deserving of special consideration. Surely, public policy needs to address the problems Hochschild identifies. But this book's isolated analysis does not serve our common interest to heal our racial problems. And it is a terrible slight to those among the "barely acknowledged in the first place."

I had great hopes that this book would help me understand how someone like Donald Trump gained so much support from a demographic he has made a career out of exploiting, and how so many of his supporters who espouse Christian values could be so accommodating to someone who openly disdains those values. Instead, I was left with the feeling that I'd been along on a "cultural tourism" ride with Hochschild, and the insights many of her "new friends" offered, as deeply felt as they might have been, showed a frustrating lack of depth and critical thinking. My takeaway was that I'd wasted my time trying to understand people who have little interest in understanding people like me. Perhaps the author will write her next book about us, and she won't even have to change the title.

Prominent sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild offers an explanation of what to many appears as a mystifying paradox: that some people support wholly or partly ideas and actions against their own best interests. Huh, these befuddled observers might retort, no, it’s obvious, these people are hardhearted, or stuck in the past, or suckers for jingoistic bombast, or racists, or malleable simpletons, or lately dumpsters (among other terms for Trump supporters). But like most fodder for polemicists on the right and left, there is a small kernel of truth in the name calling, just not the whole truth.

In this very enlightening study, shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award, Hochschild applies her years of research and development of the theory of emotion, personal and group, as the driving force in how people make sense of their world and decide what’s best for them. While directing your life from your emotional self may not strike some as rational, others might see rationality and consistency within the context of emotion. This can help in understanding where, in the case of the Tea Party adherents and generally people who appear to outside observers to be working against their interests, are coming from. You don’t have to agree with these people, but you can at least understand they aren’t the irrationalists they appear to be to many.

Hochschild spent five years immersing herself in the Tea Party culture of Louisiana. The paradox she addresses here is twofold: Why do people in among the poorest of the states, a state that receives nearly half its budget from the federal government, oppose help from the feds, and why do people living in a heavily polluted state oppose enforcing environmental regulations on the chief polluters, the oil and gas industries?

The book divides into four parts: The Great Paradox, The Social Terrain, The Deep Story and the People in It, and Going National, with supplementary appendices on the research method, toxic environment and voting patterns (the more polluted a state, the more red it is, and vice versa), and factual answers to false beliefs held by people interviewed in the book and generally throughout the right-leaning population. While the first two parts are interesting and provide context, you could go directly to the last two parts and the appendices to understand Hochschild’s conclusions.

What it boils down to is people viewing their world through the lens of their deep story. As Hochschild explains, “A deep story is a feels-as-if story—it’s the story feelings tell, in the language of symbols. It removes judgment. It removes facts. It tells us how things feel….The deep story here, that of the Tea Party, focuses on relationships between social groups within our national borders. I constructed this deep story to represent—in metaphorical form—the hopes, fears, pride, shame, resentment, and anxiety in the lives of those I talked with. Then I tried it out on my Tea Party friends to see if they thought it fit their experience. They did.” Waiting in line, watching people cut in, government giving unfair help, the seeming suspension of personal progress, and the insults endured for protesting for a fair, or better, shake, these comprise the metaphor, as well as her constructs of types. Particularly strong is how she gives you historical context for appreciating what’s happening, focusing on the 1860s and the 1960s, two influential periods in the current emotional state of the nation.

If there ever was a book for the times, for understanding the political landscape of America today, this is it. It may not—probably will not—alter your viewpoint, but at least you’ll have a clearer idea of how Tea Party people see themselves.

I didn't think anybody on the Left Coast cared about what flyover America is like. Trump took over 3,000 of the country's 3,119 counties for a simple reason: he offered more hope for people the mass media and government prefer to insult, ignore, and discriminate against. Michael Moore correctly identified the F... You vote. Liberals have destroyed the family, communities, security, the budget, and they just work harder and harder to keep doing so. Liberals objectify all who oppose them, as homophobic racists, or whatever other names they feel like. They never listen. The Democrats lost over 1,000 seats in the last election. If states that went for Trump replace their democrats in Congress, in the next elections, Republicans will have a supermajority. It didn't have to be this way. Or maybe it did. The feuding of Tories and revolutionaries, during the American Revolution, was similar. Both sides were fanatical, and neither did any listening. Each saw the other side as traitors. If there was any question about the mass media not being totally biased, the last election removed it. A Pew research poll showed that 5% of Americans trust the mass media. This is a useful book- she actually listened to people whose beliefs weren't like her. One could hope that other liberals might actually start listening. After seeing the riots in Berkeley when Milo Yiannopoulous came, to suppress First Amendment rights, I doubt it, though. My brother lives in Alabama, listens to Rush Limbaugh, was one of 60,000 people who went to hear Trump speak, there, and has no use for liberals. The Democrats have succeeded in driving working people into the Republican camp, by being arrogant, deaf, self-serving. My brother had trouble understanding Obama wanting gun control for Americans, when Eric Holder was shipping automatic weapons by the truckload to Mexican drug gangs, as part of Operation Fast and Furious. He despises liberals. Where he lives, "liberal" is only slightly less pejorative than the term "child molester". I do not exaggerate. He does miss the blue dog Democrats that liberals tainted, and weakened, so that Tea Party radicals beat them. My brother is proud of being "deplorable". In the South, and West, when Hilary said the enemy she was proudest of having was the NRA, she gave Trump the presidency (what about ISIS? al-Qaeda? no, her proudest enemy was law-abiding Americans.). I live in the Blue Northeast. Bernie could have beaten Trump- he listened, and he could fill football stadiums, when Hilary could barely fill a high school classroom. Even Biden could have defeated Trump- running his mouth wouldn't have mattered. Trump flubbed at least twice a week badly enough to destroy his candidacy, and he still won. Strangers in their own land put Trump in the White House, maybe not so much voting for Trump, but voting against Hilary the Arrogant. Republicans were a majority in Congress prior to the Depression, for over 2 decades, and they may be again. The media gave Obama a total pass. The mass media are a great argument for electing Republican presidents, because they only do their job when Republicans are presidents. I'd personally rather see a balance of power- that is what the founders intended. Except the mass media, Democrats, and Liberals keep saying they know everything, and listen to nothing people say. Hearing the McCarthyist left drone on about Russia is at least amusing. Native American councils allowed all to speak, and only when all had been heard, were decisions made- not just by a plurality, but by total buy in. Our constitution in part is based on Iroquois ideas. Or maybe the Liberals really wanted Trump in office. That would explain Democratic actions better than anything else. Hilary blamed everybody except herself for losing. She still can't listen. There is hope, though- this author listened, and didn't decide that she was centrist, when she was actually center left. What is this left and right thing, but a conspiracy to divide Americans? What about just listening, to each other, and finding win-win solutions that benefit all? Liberals have no idea how to do this, it seems. Their racist contempt for working people keeps them from listening. Thanks for a good book, Arlie. You give me hope.

With a persistent, compassionate, and curious stance, Hochschild does a deep dive into the literal and figurative heart of far-right conservativism in the contemporary US. Through conversations about pollution regulation and environmental sustainability, she reveals the emotional and cultural heartbeat of a way of life and a political philosophy that those of us (such as myself) who live outside of it may have significant difficulty grasping otherwise. Page after page, I found myself empathizing with people who - in other situations - I may have easily dismissed. The author gently and persuasively invites the liberal reader to consider the "deep story" that underlies the increasingly vicious proxies wars that rage throughout the current political and social spheres.

As a self-identified progressive, blue-state living granddaughter of red-state dwelling, conservative, and evangelical grandparents, this book offers invaluable insight into the hows and whys of my own family dynamics, and lays the groundwork for kinder and more productive conversations. That, alone, makes this book worth its weight in gold.

Additionally, this book is another painful reminder of how precious our planet and it's resources are and, in an indirect manner, continues to sound the alarm for conservationists and advocates everywhere.

This book is timely, eye-opening, and absolutely necessary reading for anyone concerned about the future of the US.

An excellent, in-depth look at our political divide focused on environmental issues. Researched over a 5-year period (100+ pages of appendices, index, end notes and bibliography) the author met with right-leaning and Tea Party members for days and months to find what makes them believe and feel as they do. A genuine eye-opener.

I was searching for understanding and empathy in my life, and Hochschild provided an excellent template for building understanding, as well as an awesome book. Her writing is very easy to read; she tells a good story and paints a detailed portrait of people she meets. Hochschild tells the story of a divided country, a "deep story", and the paradox of contemporary politics. I even read the footnotes to learn more about the studies she referenced. I will certainly look for her other books. As the political environment is so contentious, and as people are entitled to their opinions, it is totally possible that you might not like this book. However, I think the point that Hochschild is trying to make, is that we all need to engage one another in dialogue. We need to learn from and about people who hold different views than we do. That is probably the only way democracy can survive rather than devolve. So whether you are on the left, the right or right in the middle, give this book a read if you are interested in sociology, American politics, the environment, religion, big business, regulation, Louisiana, the Tea Party and more.

I would give this book ten stars if I could--for its significance. As a 77-year-old Southern white male liberal with some conservative sympathies, I was struck by the effort Hochschild, a left-leaning Berkeley sociologist, made to understand and empathize with these members of the Tea Party in Louisiana. Over five years, she visited them in their homes, their churches, workplaces, birthplaces, and even at a Trump rally. They became her friends, welcoming and trusting. She came to understand and empathize with their "deep stories," her metaphor for explaining their fierce dislike of government, their trust in free enterprise, their devotion to family, church, home, and tradition, and their proud willingness to put up with toxic pollution in their beautiful state. To me, this is a more important (if less entertaining) book than "Hillbilly Elegy," but both are essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of these turbulent times.

The author is kind and tries to be fair as she seeks to understand people (Tea party voters) whose perception of the state of our country is very different than our own. There was a large investment of time and relationship in the quest. The book provides much valuable food for thought. In this increasingly combative times, it was comforting to read about people extending goodwill and empathy across the political divide. Highly recommended!

Arlie Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions which underlie moral beliefs, practices, and social life generally - and from that perspective the book was good. There are also already a number of excellent “2 star” ratings on the store for this book. I won’t repeat their content here.

What really disappointed me toward the end of the book, was a series of oft heard “big lie” liberal statements like this one:

“He (Trump) generalized about all Muslims, all Mexicans, all women – including that all women menstruate, a fact Trump declared “disgusting,” (He famously described Fox News newscaster Megyn Kelly as “bleeding from whatever.” ) . Trump jovially imitated a disabled journalist by physically shaking his arm in imitation of palsy – all deeply derogatory actions in the eyes of Trump’s detractors but liberating to those who had felt constrained to pretend sympathy.”

In response to this example: in numerous YouTube campaign speeches Trump expressed love for the Mexican people, but they had to come in legally and their criminal elements had to be deported.

He (Trump) did NOT generalize about ALL Muslims. He (Trump) did point out the statistical fact that Muslim populations have disproportionately induced religious driven terrorist crime in Europe, and (according to Trump’s words) until we figure out what’s going on we should not replicate Europe’s experience here.

Megyn Kelly had been unbelievably rude and obnoxious to Trump – and Trump responded to her in kind as an individual. Liberals like to extend this personal response to Megyn Kelly as an attack on ALL women.

That newscaster he mocked had originally written of Muslims celebrating the Twin Towers attack of 9/11 – then went on to withdrew his story years later under pressure. Trump was mocking that ditzy reporter as a ditzy reporter - with no knowledge (at the time) of his disability.

The end of Hochschild’s book is sprinkled with highly debatable selective “facts” like this - which lead to her liberal Berkley narratives. They trash the good will she tried to establish by scaling “empathy walls”. Nice try. 2 stars.

My review is for the audiobook narrated skillfully by Suzanne Toren. I found the writer's style so engaging and the topics so insightful that a short way into the book I wished that I had been reading a hardback book so that I could make margin notes, highlight passages, and dog-ear the pages.

Arlie Russell Hochschild is a sociologist from Berkeley, California and admittedly a member of the left-leaning elite, educated class. She spendt 5 years visiting and researching the residents of Louisiana in an effort to determine why the chasms between liberals and conservatives have widened so much over the years and why so many southern conservatives seem to make decisions that are counter to their own best interests.

Here are some notes I took while listening to the book:
The people of the region are primarily Cajun, Catholic and Conservative
Church is a pillar of social life. When faced with a challenge they believe that it is useful and worthwhile to "pray on it".
"If you've got a problem, get used to it." This is quite different from the liberal's view, that if you've got a problem, you need to find out how to fix it.
There is a culture of adaptation and endurance.
Blue collar way of life is going out of style.
Federal Government takes money from workers and gives it to the idle - from people of good character to lazy, undeserving people- makers vs. takers.
44% of Louisiana's state budget comes from D.C. yet they blame the federal government for many of their problems.
While decrying the expense of federal welfare programs, ironically, the citizens rely on many of them with the attitude: "If the programs are there, why not use them."
The pledges of the Tea Party offer them their homeland back.
Fox News stokes their fears.
Liberal commentators look down on them.
They believe the EPA is an enemy attack on America, prioritizing the ecology over jobs.
They believe that pollution is the sacrifice we make for capitalism.
The environment is a liberal cause, which has resulted in an undeclared Class War.
"Strangers in their own land; afraid, resentful, displaced and dismissed in a sort of undeclared class war".

The author uses a couple of metaphors to describe her findings during her research process: "The Great Paradox" is that the people of Louisiana, very devoted to the land, are hostile to federal intervention against pollution and industrial practices destroying their land and water and way of life. This state suffers more than any other from ecological issues, yet the residents resent any governmental intervention to improve the issues.
They feel the people on the left are imposing liberal rules on how to feel about social justice.

Hochschild crafts a "Deep Story" to describe why so many have a fundamental belief that they are getting shoved further and further back in the line by immigrants, people of color, and basically anyone that is non-white. They feel that they are falling further and further behind in terms of job security and wealth acquisition, while others (mainly non-white) surge ahead at their expense.

She also refers frequently to the "Empathy Wall" which is a barrier between her beliefs and her desire to empathize with and understand the people she writes about. She frequently writes with dismay that she is unable to break down this wall and understand why they makes decisions that are bad for them in terms of pollution, poverty, health and education.

I found the topics quite fascinating, and though it didn't really answer how we can move forward to narrow the chasm between liberals and conservatives, and improve the quality of life for all, it certainly gave me an empathy and understanding of why some of the people interviewed have acquired their positions and beliefs.

This is a fascinating account about the roots of the Tea Party and Trumpism and the rage that inspires it. The central thesis is that these people resent what they see as people cutting ahead of the in line toward the American dream. To them the federal government spends a whole lot of time worrying about Blacks, immigrants, gays, women etc. helping them rise while totally ignoring them. The book centers on Louisiana which seems to exemplify a contradiction. The state gets 40% of its income through the federal government aid but still they hate the government.

This is an important and certainly timely book. It's clear that Ms. Hochschild likes and values the people she has come to know so well. Her willingness to set aside her own worldview and respectfully convey the world as seen by those she interviews is admirable and I think, effective.

The whole thesis of the book can be succinctly presented in an Op ed column. I honestly got bored after a while because their was nothing new.
The book also tries with limited success to present an air or rigor an empirical research. For example , the author mentions Dr. so and so who helped with a regression model. I had two issues with that line approach. First, the author confounds correlation with causation. Second, a high schooler can run the regression. For a real gem, I would strongly recommend evicted.

This book is a scholarly attempt to explain why so many Americans feel alienated and cheated out of the American Dream. It also helped me understand why this group of people votes with their hearts and not their heads.

I liked the breakdown of the deep stories of persons in America. And while the environmental angle of the research in this book appealed to my environmentalist passions, I finished this book wishing to have learned more about the educational issues, racial issues, and more broadly on the Tea Party beyond the focus on the environment. I'm so glad she incorporated the GreenArmy and General Honore in the story as well.

I'd recommend this book to most of my SF and California friends, but not to my Miswestern family. Coming from a family with a giant empathy wall in the center, I found much of her research very personal, with parts very articulate and insightful beyond things I would have been able to distinguish.

It's a great read to cope with the election, and a reminder (without being prescriptive) of how intensely we categorize and classify people when we ought to find our commonalities.

MUST READ FOR THOSE WONDERING HOW PEOPLE COULD VOTE AGAINST THEIR OWN WELFARE, ESPECIALLY READ IF YOU THINK GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS ARE NOT WELCOME. THIS BOOK EXPLAINED A LOT TO ME AND IS GOOD ALSO AS AN INTERESTING READ.

This book is about far more than "why people voted for Trump." There is great distrust of "The Establishment," whether that be government, mainstream media, mega-corporations, and even academia... and for good reasons. To understand more of those reasons, I highly recommend readers also see the book, "Class Crucifixion."Class Crucifixion: Money, Power, Religion and the Death of the Middle Class

Tracing the origins of today's extreme right to its origins in the "massive resistance" to integration in Virginia, this book is by far the best analysis of the extreme politics that have convulsed governance in the US. The author clearly traces the people and philosophies that crystallized into an overt assault on the democratic process itself. It is carefully researched and makes unique use of in George Mason University that sheds a vivid new light on the thinking and the methods of the extreme right. The final chapter, as the author clearly admits, is more of a liberal screed than an analysis of history. The prose is wonderfully clear, and the analysis filled with original observations and insights.

Arlie Hochschild writes, after much personal and professional searching, one of the most profound insights into today's far right. We all need this type of work to gain understanding into the questionable actions of our fellow Americans.

Phyllis pgh pa I read this book twice, trying to wade through the people, the places and the issues. Her research is most helpful as we try to understand "those people". But then I had an Ah Ha moment and realized that we liberals, progressives are now Strangers in Our Own Land--
the feelings, the fear, the anxiety that is provoked every minute that another Tweet comes out to destroy are basic beliefs--I read this book and then realized that it is I and my co-horts but on the other side of the fence now. Thanks to Arlie Russell Hochschild for helping me understand my
sense of being a strange! since last November!!!!

This book is a must read to understand the current trends that has been much maligned in this election season, I particularly love the last chapter. How do blue state people have their cake and eat it too? From this book, I get the understanding that the majority of the policies are enacted to keep you at your place, when you fully buy into the story, you will never move up beyond where you were born into. Truly an eye opener for me.

The author visits Louisiana folks in an attempt to find out why the right often acts against its own self-interest. In a spirit of conversation, Hochschild talks to many people who espouse conservative views against the environment though they live in a world that has been made toxic by chemical companies just down the road. Fascinating.

The author provides an interesting and unique perspective for those of us in the north, on coasts, and large cities who live a different reality. She talks about building empathy bridges and indeed sets an example herself by developing close relationships with the people of Louisiana. In the closing, I was hoping for more closure and more recommendations on feasible changes that might benefit the people of the south, who disproportionately bear the burden of pollution and limited economic opportunity. At the end of the day, the author described the paradox for me very well...but the book still left me feeling powerless to support my Southern neighbors, and at odds with them since we continue to vote so differently.

While I suppose it is important to officially note the impact of personal identity on political views and voting, we already knew that people vote based on their values. As someone who lives in a rural area of Colorado, the influence of private beliefs is all too obvious. Maybe some people on the coasts needed to hear this, though.

Strangers in Their Own Land interweaves the history of industrial pollution with the lives of families affected by it. The author delves into their histories and the history of the area to try to determine their support of the Tea Party.

It is amazing that these people are so resilient after all that industry has put them through.

As someone who grew up in Texas and Oklahoma, the child of an oil company employee, but who has lived for more than 45 years in New Jersey, I appreciated the scholarly and human approach to telling the story of Tea Party members in Louisiana. It has made me consider my often quick dismissal of what motivates Tea Party and other conservative voters although like the author I am convinced that climate change is real and it is critical that we address it as a nation. The empathy wall is a high one but I think that this book will help any reader consider how we might scale it.

Fantastic and much needed book that tells how the Right side of politics thinks, and WHY. The objectivity and compassion of the author is what makes this book so readable. Sides are not taken, but the view of the people is explained in a clear and unbiased way. We most definitely need more books like this one.

None of these 1 star reviewers are confirmed purchasers. Sounds like just one deeply angry individual to me. I've only read the sample but to me it sounds like the author is approaching her subject as an anthropologist who really wants to know these people. The first person shooter she interviews is described as a kind, intelligent guy. Just felt I had to comment. Russell is obviously trying to tear down the walls we have built regarding our political stances. I am buying this book for our very liberal church in order to help us learn to look more kindly on those who hold opposing views.

She has broken barriers that we did not realize were there . Each section of USA has it’s own culture and we need to empathize with other cultures . She explains how Louisiana was to some degree “set up “ to have environmental catastrophes . We are pulled into the subculture of famlly and community caring that can be missing in the more liberal thinking and fast paced coastal states

I fear Hochschild's work carries us uncritically into the view that the Americans
in the bayou act against their own best interests. "They reject," as Hochschild
wrote on p. 151, "their own need of [government] . . . even to help clean up the
pollution in their backyard.." and isn't that acting against their own (best)
interests! However, if we treat her work as a study in topology--as a look at
something that any intelligent observer would claim is as plain as the nose
on one's face-- we will have missed the work as a work of values.

Taking Hochschild seriously, her subjects (they are that) tell us that what they reject
is not "their need" and "their interests", but Hochschild's framing of the issue as their
having those needs and interests. The difficulty here is to grasp what the author
has done. She framed the issue as if 'pollution in their own back yard' contained the same
degree of force in the lives of the bayou people as it has in her own Deep Story. She did
this while her subjects said something quite different. They tell us that they realize
their water has been made dreadful while letting us know that they do not rank
it as we rank do from within our deep story--"Praise Jesus!" As it turns out, their rejection
is not the one Hochschild gives us--a rejection of their own needs and interests, but rather
a rejection of our way of expressing their lives.

We and the people of the bayou acknowledge the collapse of the salt dome,
but what it means to us, our attitude toward it and those responsible, does not
follow from the mere collapse of the dome, but up from the value-mixes within
our own deep, or subtopological, story. In a glance at some former works,
Hochschild wrote: "All this work led me to believe strongly in paid parental
leave for working parents of newborn and adoptive babies;" we emphasize that
that belief is not the result of the work, but a result of the work infused with
Hochschild's own values and goals as distinct from other valuing observers.

Arlie Russell Hochschild has given us an important work. It deserves nothing
less than that we should tackle it for the possibilities about ourselves as we
face others. Anything less is a form of dominion (colonialism).

As a moderate living near Berkeley, this was a disappointing read. I came in with high hopes due to the many positive reviews and this book being National Book Award finalist, but the author failed to write beyond her own biases, and never got to the root of the political discord. This was the same biased story I hear regularly from Berkeley liberals unwilling to step back and truly listen to the "other side." Stories were not presented objectively; people were introduced with the author's personal stereotypes front and center, and while Russell sometimes presented clear explanations of viewpoints, there was little effort to understand the feelings of her subjects, and the so-called "empathy wall" was never scaled. Several times in the book, political opinions are troublingly presented as fact, e.g. "the split has widened because the right has moved right, not because the left has moved left." Ignoring the culpability of the left in the current state of political divide is counterproductive to the espoused goal of building bridges and understanding the feelings of the other side.

A fascinating read and window into a deep pocket of Tea Party supporters living in Louisiana. Certainly, this work fully captures the paradox that some voters make choices that directly conflict with their interests, and do not make sense to someone not in their 'land' (so to speak). However, I could not scale the empathy wall (which I do not fault the author for at all), and came away very discouraged about the prospects of the future of our democracy, as I don't see that reason plays a part in their thinking and can imagine no scenario in which this might change.

I grew up in a rural area surrounded by many people who thought like the people profiled in this book. Many of them are probably very similar in their thinking. I think there is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy at play. I am now an East Coast 'liberal,' and in reading what residents of Louisiana think of people who think differently, I am struck (but not surprised) that their notions bear little resemblance to reality. The stereotypes and misconceptions abound. How ironic that someone in my supposed 'bubble' would be the one trying to understand them and to relate.

This is a weak book, not because the research is poorly done per se, but because the conclusions that are drawn offer virtually no greater insight than one could get from a casual conversation with a reasonably educated person. It's an example of what makes some areas of modern sociology a failure.

Unfortunately this book only made me angrier at the division politics that plague our nation. I find it very disturbing that Hochschild's southern Louisiana research subjects continue to dig their heels ever deeper into the muck as the world falls apart around them. I have a hard time understanding why more Bayou residents aren't furious at the industrial pollution that has sickened and killed their neighbors and family members, including children, and destroyed their own homes. I can only assume that paid off corporate media, mega churches and opportunistic politicians are at the root of this mess and that Hochschild's "friends" have been brainwashed. The sentiments expressed are sometimes shocking in their callousness towards immigrants, refugees and the environment. I get that folks feel left behind, dismissed and vulnerable but as a west coast outsider I cannot wrap my head around this level of willful ignorance and misplaced blame. The cronyism between corporate America and our government officials is absolutely a problem but limiting regulation is not the answer, unless you don't mind your community and cherished way of life literally being sucked into a sinkhole. Apparently some people don't.

This book really helped me understand the thinking of people who embrace the Tea Party and Donald Trump. It wasn't easy for me to read, but it was very helpful. I think I understand their point of view better now. This is the only way we can have conversations with people who we disagree with, by trying to understand where they are coming from.

This book is eye opening, especially for a "NY"er who doesn't really understand how people consistently vote against their own 'self interest'. It clarifies what encourages and influences people and it educates those of us on the 'Coasts".

A genuinely helpful look behind the divide in American society, which I think provides a framework for a broader understanding of how people view fairness and injustice in any society or community. Read this if you'd like more empathy and understanding.

The book itself is great. However, I received only one disc, Section 1. I did NOT receive the subsequent 3 Sections. Check to make sure you receive all the discs on arrival! Don't wait, as I did, to open months later when you are ready to listen.

As others have said, this will be the most depressing thing you read for a while. It does an excellent job, however, trying to bridge the gap between right and left. I wish some conservatives would review it for balance. I am someone living in a blue county in a red state. It did much to illuminate the views of my neighbors and, while I will always loudly disagree with them and vote differently I think there is much insight in the thought that if I had grown up in different circumstances I might have come to different beliefs. Highly recommended.

A pointed, sympathetic engagement with upset Southerners and their frustration with big government. The many individuals the author engaged are supporting measures which are against their own interests, particularly supporting industries and local government actions that are irrevocably and seriously polluting their environment.

Now we know where Shirley Jackson found inspiration in American society to write The Lottery.

As nice as these people might be, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get past their fact universe to persuade them that there might be a different way.

You simply have to outvote them and then through sustained policies that liberals could enact, improve their lives too. I wish their lots in lives could improve soon. But doubling down on the Lottery Society is not going to work.

It would be interesting to further develop the contrast made late in the book between Louisiana and Norway, two oil states with similar size landmass and population, but which have completely different societal results.

Along with Norway’s wealth and optimism versus Louisiana’s poverty and pessimism, one other obvious contrast is the racial make up: Norway is ~94% white European with probably less than 3% black or brown, while Louisiana is only 65% white and almost 33% black.

European societies like Norway are usually disparaged and dismissed by the American right as “Socialism.” In this context, socialism means giving white people’s money to others. If Louisiana was a white as Norway, we might find it looks a lot more like Norway. On the other hand, as we have been seeing from the newly rising European right wing parties, if Norway was as white as Louisiana, we might find that it looks a lot more like Louisiana.

Ms. Hochshild makes a lot out of her model of people standing in line while others cut in line, which all of her Lake Charles friends seemed to identify with. It might indeed be a suitable model for those people given their perspective on the world. I think this model translates well beyond Lake Charles, even to here in Upstate, NY.

It would have been interesting though if she could have developed it further with them by getting their views on a number of subsequent questions, like:

1. Who set the line arrangements in the first place which had them already in front of some of those they viewed as line cutters?
2. What did you do to deserve your place in the line?
3. Who said that there should only be one line?
4. Who says that you need to stand in the Lake Charles line?

You are not going to persuade these people. You could at best billboard the mis-understandings summarized in Appendix C, throughout Red America, so that they could at least see the reality that Fox News keeps hidden from them.

Then you need to out vote them.

I am about a third of the way through this book and there is only one conclusion I can draw so far. The folks in the South who are the subjects of the authors work and who are tea partiers, and whose land and health are being threatened by the very policies they support, do not think critically. It is not that they are stupid.. They allow their culture and their feelings to dictate their political beliefs. It takes real self discipline to thoughtfully analyse situations, determine cause and effect relationships, review different possible solutions and to support those that actually work and to implement these through large scale activism. Rugged individualism, tradition and localism will sometimes work on a very small scale but are not effective in opposing predatory corporations who are destroying the places these folks hold dear. Only government has enough institutional power to hold corporations in check, but the cultural value system in the South and the apparent desperate need for employment will not allow support for the needed government action. I am hoping that as I finish the book there might be some glimmer that this will change but I am not betting on it. If it doesn't, we will simply see much of the South continue to devolve into third world enclaves rejecting any national initiatives to counter it.

An essential read for understanding our incredibly divided political culture today. An affectionate and compassionate look at people on the opposite extreme of the political spectrum from the author (who lives in Berkeley).

Arlie Hochschild’s riveting book takes us into the hearts and minds of the Tea Party’s grief and rage at feeling overlooked and marginalized. The deep divide in American politics will look and feel different to you as you build your own empathy bridge to the experience of the American right. Joan Cole

I rarely review products but this is the exception. First, the book is well written so the reader gets a great story. But more importantly, the author's insights on the southern conservative and their lives are exceptional. I really have no clue how so many people can vote in a way that contradicts their own self-interests but the author offers us many clues. The book offers striking examples of why were so divided as a nation. A must read. And, don't eat the fish.

My friends recommended this book as very eye opening. I'm sure the information is good but I ordered the audio book and can't listen to the woman's voice. She sounds like someone who is dying of lung cancer and only has a few days left to say her piece. She is breathing hard on every word. She sounds like a very old woman who can't see very well and can't make out the words so she has to pronounce them verrry---slowwwlllly.

UC Berkeley Sociologist Emerita Professor Arlie Hochschild interviewed some people for this book. One of them was retired pipe fitter Lee Sherman in his Louisiana dining room. For this book, she interviewed more than 60 people. She found Tea Party contacts in Louisiana, a state where only 11% of the white electorate voted for Mr. Obama in 2012. She wrote her book to try to get people out of political bubbles. She said that having empathy is usually the best way to get people to open up about the emotional and personal experiences that derive their social or economic choices.

This no more reflects the South or the Tea Party than the “hood” reflects Michigan. A liberal with bias has written a book praised by other leftists. That is enough to tell any fair-minded person it is a waste of time.

The author of this book, Arlie Russell Hochschild, is baffled by what she calls the Great Paradox – that is no paradox to me. People everywhere are set on destroying their world – and they are succeeding.

Only one thing baffles me more – their stubborn inability to see this. But this can be easily understood – if we assume the decision to destroy, resides in their collective unconscious. Which exists to hide nasty things they don’t want to know about.

I doubt if she writes about this.

Arlie Hochschild spent five years in southern Louisiana, one of the poorest places in the country, interviewing people suffering from diseases caused by the very industry that
provided their livelihood. She wrote their story with empathy and backed up her observations with an appendix worthy of
the scholar she is, a respected professor of Sociology at Berkeley. She wanted to understand the "great paradox" that caused people to reject government regulation of the source of suffering and death in Louisiana, the chemical industry, and was at the same time the source of their livelihood. She writes with wonderful artistry and backs up her story with a scholarly appendix worthy of a respected professor of Sociology.

This book is written and presented as if the author is conducting a study or research but the authors presumptions and demagoguery are rife throughout. The author is obviously a hardcore leftist. Would not recommend this book.

The author has a real Us and Them Take On The World. She presents this as an unbiased study but throughout the first half of the book, I couldn't finish, her bias is very apparent. The way that she can't understand why people would vote for what they think is right even though it may not have the best individual impact on them is pretty telling. She's a very selfish privileged author.
Full disclosure: I only got about halfway through. I may pick it up and Power through and see if she redeems herself but for now I had to put it down.

Go back about 125 years. Vanderbilt, Morgan, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford. They were really fought it out as the richest person. Advance about 125 years? Sores, Kock brothers, Buffet, and Gates? Who is the richest? And the dip in the stock market (2007)? It is minor compared to the 1930. And the poorest state in the union?

A foregone conclusion by focusing only on Louisiana oil country. She should have stepped into many more areas. Corn country, wheat country, cattle country, coal country, mining country, auto manufacturing country, fishing country, logging country, small business of any kind, and how retirees feel. Nothing surprising from a coastal snoot. This will go in the trash; I won't impose it on other people!

Simply awful. On the pretext of being open minded to how others process information, this book is so left leaning and at times merely a voice of the agenda of the political left that us was painful to read. If you want to believe that all the wisdom is housed in blue states, his book is your voice. However, as a lifetime resident of a blue state, this makes me feel sad for the way it paints others. If you're going to be lording your organic, recycling, better educated, rural white hating snarky attitude in such a manner, save it for your like minded neighbors, but don't pretend to be fair or objective.

after the huge build up and enormous amounts of favorable press, I was stunned at how little, and how prolix, this book is
Probably nothing here that wasn't in The Nation or some such back in the 50s
She interviews a small number of people; they are ingnorant, bigoted, and totally unable to see that their choices make them worse off
what is new about that ?
and even worse then the fox news ignorance, and the religous bigotry, and the inability to see that voting for Jindal made them worse off, is the hypocrisy involving work and blacks
her subjects above all praise hard work and loath loafers who take gov't handouts, yet at the same time do all they can to prevent others (blacks) from having a fair shot

As a sociologist I can verify that this is terrible sociology driven by no verified race theories nor any methodological import. In fact, it's a sloppy white liberal elite imagination of an America that does not exist for anyone else and that excuses both elites and white liberals from any participation in electoral racism.

This book could also be called "Absence of Logic." If it wasn't for needing to complete this for my book club I'd have abandoned it early on. Go ahead and poison our land say the trumpanzees in Louisiana as long as you give us a job. Or better still, I'm churched so I'll be loyal to republicans cos they stop undeserving people cutting in line ahead of me. Oi.

I wanted to give this book a chance, I really did. But shortly after the opening pages, Ms. Hochschild tosses in this doozy: "This [political] split has widened because the right has moved right, not because the left has moved left." She follows with her lovingly curated, Berkeley-communist list of criticisms of the conservative movement. There is zero mention of the extremist liberal move towards Bernie Sanders, no mention of the ridiculous social justice warrior movement, and the identity politics that the Democratic party has embraced. And this is again right at the start. Stop reading here folks if you think you'll get an educated sociologist's perspective on the American divide. On the other hand, if you're a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who knows no conservatives, this might be the closest you get to understanding conservative thought. So keep reading it, bravo for your open-mindedness, but know that Ms. Hochschild hardly transcends the condescending attitude that conservatives often perceive in the liberal elite.

I have never in my life read a more inaccurate snobby and ignorant book about class and conservatism is in my life. This woman, sitting from her ivory tower thinks she understands the 'mind set' of the Republican party, or Conservatives by going out to the sticks to interview 'toothless, uneducated white trash' who have lost their way. Even the description of the book is sickening. she puts down everyone who isn't from her Socialist Left Wing party as being a lost, uneducated failure. Deplorable, and irredeemable.
Even the description of her book is sickening "Her writing is supposed to help us understand what it feels like to live in “red” America".

Can the pomposity get worse? I could spend all day picking apart the litany of presumptuous statements she makes. ALL of her preconceived assumptions are false. How condescending and arrogant she is. What is frightening is to see that these kind of people are in academia all over the United States, poisoning the minds of the youth. That is why we see this self absorbed , ignorant, "snow flakes " in liberal collages today, who will not listen to anything that doesn't fit in to their Left Wing agenda. People like YOU who are intolerant and rude to anyone who does not think just like you.

Conservatives come in all shapes and colors, like blacks and women, Arlie. Or have you not found that out yet? Most of us 'down south' learn that in the first grade.

It might come to a surprise that I am a conservative, even though I live in Washington DC, and was raised by professionals in an upper middle class family in the mid west. My mother came from Arkansas but went to the University of Chicago. So sorry Arlie, I nor millions of other Conservatives fit into your nasty and deplorable Stereotype.

This was a loaner, and overpriced at that.
If the author could have dropped her bigoted viewpoint and concentrated on the subject, it would have had a chance at readability.
As it is her elitism and class hatred ruined this.

Oh, my Lord, another left coast liberal who claims to be in touch with her "people" by denigrating their culture in such a down home yet high handed manner as to render her totally without credibility to us good old folks who can spot a phony from all the way down in de ol' bayou. What a crock. She might well be served to go "home" and hang out a little before she starts pontificating about her pre disposed prejudices. Wasn't sociology the easiest degree on the menu behind psychology before gender studies and African American Culture?

Bad product, worse support and amazingly even worse marketing automation processes.

Bought the product. It never worked. Reached out multiple time for help (emails and surveys). Never received it. Was finally contacted after a year because I shut down the credit card tied to my Whistle account and they reached out. All around, it appears Whistle is a poorly run company. Be careful.

she writes 'I was definitely not in Berkeley, California. . . . No New York Times at the newsstand, almost no organic produce in grocery stores or farmers’ markets, no foreign films in movie houses, few small cars, fewer petite sizes in clothing stores, fewer pedestrians speaking foreign languages into cell phones — indeed, fewer pedestrians. There were fewer yellow Labradors and more pit bulls and bulldogs. Forget bicycle lanes, color-coded recycling bins, or solar panels on roofs. In some cafes, virtually everything on the menu was fried.”'. How could somebody like this possible write an unbiased book? Why do people who feel like this think they know what's going on in these people's world? Why didn't she write about affluent Tea Partiers? She obvoiusly thinks every town should make sure and sell NYT, etc etc. what a joke