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Rating: 
Summary: Piercing the narrative, telling the truth
Review: I hope that with the success of her acid dipped expose of what's really going on in the marketplace of the working poor( Nickel and Dimed) all of Barbara Ehrenreich's books will be back in print because she is a species of writer on the verge of extinction. Unabashedly pro union and anti compassionate conservatism and faith based charity and decidedly not glamorous in her pursuit of topics and people to interview she does the grind work of looking statistics in the eye and debunking some of our more vigorously pandered myths. This volume in particular does a fantastic job in holding a mirror up to the paranoias and greed of the middle class who suspects every contrarian to be after what they have accrued and fenced in and considers its possessions and spouses( is that one category or two?) its natural born right as long as the community is drawn with an infantile crayon and nobody knows who works the sewers.
It illustrates a society where everyone wants to purchase their own fringes of good taste, the rich beg more than the poor because they can always afford the bail for atonement and where every transgression spawns a fresh bombardment of analysts trying to mine the national soul, subtlety is never profitable medicine and the chosen few worry about the calories in walnut raspberry dressing. In the honored tradition of Studs Terkel Ms Ehrenreich points out that there is one airwave for the brash winners, the losers of all stripes remain unseen unless they are truly interesting criminals but the large portion of the silent middle class is stuck in a morass of anger, fear and wall building to leave everybody out who can't be labelled with a corporate golf pass, a church membership or a Neiman Marcus preferred customer I.D. The result is that they have mortgaged about every particle of their humanity to one vendor or another.
Rating: 
Summary: Still relevant after all these years
Review: I read "Fear of Falling" out of curiosity. Can a book published in 1989 about the American middle class still be relevant? Sadly -- for reasons that will be detailed below -- it still can be. The middle class in 2004 is still as selfish, self-seeking, and elitist as it was when Ehrenreich wrote this book. There are quaint features to the book. The author speaks indignantly of business executives earning $1 million per year -- a big salary in 1989, but chump change for the CEO of 2004.Ehrenreich defines the middle class as the professional and managerial workers -- the doctors, lawyers, professors, and mid-level executives -- of our society. In 2004, members of the professional middle class would have incomes of at least $60,000 up to about $250,000 per year. They would comprise nearly one half of the American population. Over the middle class would be the rich, two or three percent of the population, and below would be the lower or working classes, comprising about one half of the population. Ehrenreich provides a mini-history of the professional middle class from 1960 up till the late 1980s. What one sees over these three decades is increasing distance between the middle and the lower classes -- plus increasing disinterest in addressing problems of poverty and social injustice in the U.S. The middle class "is too driven by its own ambitions, too compromised by its own elite status, and too removed from those whose sufferings cry out most loudly for redress." She attributes the middle class's anxiety to "fear of falling" into the nether-world of Walmart workers and trailer park living. Her (vague) prescription for wholesome social change is expanded educational opportunity and removing "artificial barriers." The trends Ehrenreich identifies in 1989 have not only continued but intensified. The distance between rich and poor, socially and economically, has increased. The professional middle class has lost much of what social conscience it once had and movement toward an equalitarian society, discernible in 1960, has been reversed. Is that a bad thing? I think so.
Rating:
Summary: Still relevant after all these years
Review: I read "Fear of Falling" out of curiosity. Can a book published in 1989 about the American middle class still be relevant? Sadly -- for reasons that will be detailed below -- it still can be. The middle class in 2004 is still as selfish, self-seeking, and elitist as it was when Ehrenreich wrote this book. There are quaint features to the book. The author speaks indignantly of business executives earning $1 million per year -- a big salary in 1989, but chump change for the CEO of 2004. Ehrenreich defines the middle class as the professional and managerial workers -- the doctors, lawyers, professors, and mid-level executives -- of our society. In 2004, members of the professional middle class would have incomes of at least $60,000 up to about $250,000 per year. They would comprise nearly one half of the American population. Over the middle class would be the rich, two or three percent of the population, and below would be the lower or working classes, comprising about one half of the population. Ehrenreich provides a mini-history of the professional middle class from 1960 up till the late 1980s. What one sees over these three decades is increasing distance between the middle and the lower classes -- plus increasing disinterest in addressing problems of poverty and social injustice in the U.S. The middle class "is too driven by its own ambitions, too compromised by its own elite status, and too removed from those whose sufferings cry out most loudly for redress." She attributes the middle class's anxiety to "fear of falling" into the nether-world of Walmart workers and trailer park living. Her (vague) prescription for wholesome social change is expanded educational opportunity and removing "artificial barriers." The trends Ehrenreich identifies in 1989 have not only continued but intensified. The distance between rich and poor, socially and economically, has increased. The professional middle class has lost much of what social conscience it once had and movement toward an equalitarian society, discernible in 1960, has been reversed. Is that a bad thing? I think so.
Rating:
Summary: She is a genius
Review: I really learned so much from this book. The unfortunate thing is that she wrote it in 1989 and I don't think she's planning another one... but it's amazing to just read the history from the perspecive of a person in 1989. She spots some very bad trends in corporate america / industrial society which have subsequently worsened now that it's 15 years later. A lot of her predictions (or subtle suggestions at what might go wrong) have come true - and it's not surprising because her hypotheses and analyses are based on solid data. There was some passage where she talked about CEOs getting paid absurd salaries like 650k and she didn't see an end to the rise... well, she hit that nail on the head. In "nickel and dimed" you really heard her voice, but this book is very very factual - and she interjects with her everpresent wit now & again - but not as often as her recent work. Her writing style is an absolutely beautiful combination of wry wit, confidence, vast intelligence, humor, and deep understanding of the issues (through research). I would LOVE to read a 2004 version of this book but I don't know if it's top of mind for her these days. Either way - you still learn a lot from this book. I love it. I wish I were a sociology major in college now so I'd have someone to talk about this book with! It's DEFINITELY worth finding someone with an out of print copy to buy from. The book is priceless.
Rating:
Summary: She is a genius
Review: It's very easy for a book on a topic like this to be a lot of fluff, facts molded to fit perhaps outdated ideological frameworks and that sort of thing. This book is not like that, it's a thoughtful analysis of the American "professional-managerial middle class" in the late 20th century. It was also not a boring read, at least not for me. Whether she has analyzed things correctly or not I don't know, she does have some good insights and I agree with her judgements on certain topics like on the "silent majority". I also enjoyed her book "Nickled and Dimed". Thomas Frank of The Baffler gives very high praise for this book, I think he even said everything he has written after reading it is just footnotes to this book. He is a good writer as well so that is quite a compliment.
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful rumination on the American class system
Review: It's very easy for a book on a topic like this to be a lot of fluff, facts molded to fit perhaps outdated ideological frameworks and that sort of thing. This book is not like that, it's a thoughtful analysis of the American "professional-managerial middle class" in the late 20th century. It was also not a boring read, at least not for me. Whether she has analyzed things correctly or not I don't know, she does have some good insights and I agree with her judgements on certain topics like on the "silent majority". I also enjoyed her book "Nickled and Dimed". Thomas Frank of The Baffler gives very high praise for this book, I think he even said everything he has written after reading it is just footnotes to this book. He is a good writer as well so that is quite a compliment.
Rating:
Summary: The truth hurts
Review: Right on the money sad but true.Well researched and documented. Should make people think about the world we are creating. It's too bad the people who won't read this book are the ones that should. We take too much and give too little.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly readable!
Review: Some sociology texts, particularly those dealing with class issues, can be pretty boring to read but this book holds your attention beginning to end. I highly recommend it. Check out my used copy available for sale!
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