You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
550 reviews for:
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Arlie Russell Hochschild
4.09 AVERAGE
550 reviews for:
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Arlie Russell Hochschild
4.09 AVERAGE
I heard about this book through Bill Gates top 5 of 2017.
A fantastic book. Worth the read just for the middle chapter, "The Deep Story". The author does an incredible job articulating not the reasons for the political divide and the difference in logic, but the WHY behind how people feel.
Surprisingly relevant for me as a Canadian living in the growing gap of left and right, even in Ontario. While I may not agree with the outcome, this book helps me understand the honour, social order, and values that around me hold.
A fantastic book. Worth the read just for the middle chapter, "The Deep Story". The author does an incredible job articulating not the reasons for the political divide and the difference in logic, but the WHY behind how people feel.
Surprisingly relevant for me as a Canadian living in the growing gap of left and right, even in Ontario. While I may not agree with the outcome, this book helps me understand the honour, social order, and values that around me hold.
Like Hillbilly Elegy, I appreciated that this book provided an opportunity for me to get outside my liberal bubble of thinking but I don’t think it solves anything. I enjoyed the key focus of environmental regulation, as my book exchange partner thought I would. I kept expecting, however, more discussion about race which felt like the elephant in the room throughout the book.
An exceptional treatise on the American South as it specifically relates to politics is what's on offer in Hochschild's hotly recommended book (in particular after the 2016 US elections). Hochschild couches herself in a highly approachable methodology for understanding that mercurial beast, the voter that votes against their own self-interest in favor of a "deep story". Understanding this dynamic is at the heart of understanding the wholesale rejection of so-called mainstream candidates in elections and the generational systems that have allowed entire cultures and regions to lay fallow. The analysis in the book, for the sake of both simplicity and driving home a deeper point is contained within rural Louisiana and the stories that Hochschild unearths are unimaginable to those of us that subscribe to the left-leaning belief that government should be working for the people in supporting them. What's most fascinating about this book and the reason I recommend it so highly is because of just how deeply I was forced to check my own preconceptions of the way I believe government and private sectors should work. This book is challenging, in the way that it demands understanding, or at least in Hochschild's case, empathy. I came away from it not particularly more empathetic to the supposed entreaties of a region of mostly people who believe they are not at the front of the line in favor of minorities, but rather with an understanding of how they came to think that way. Perhaps the saddest event in the entire book revolves around a sinkhole in a remote parish in Louisiana - it brings together the absolute worst in private sector abuses with government non-intervention, leaving dozens of people to fend for themselves and even abandon their homes. But do they blame the companies? The state government? The party that continually reduces regulation? No. And in that way, you begin to see hyper-partisanship for the monster it truly is - some all-consuming nouveau religion whose only deity is money, power, and advancement.
The book really tried to give me a good reason (other than racism) that poor people vote Republican, but I couldn't find it. Just seemed to be an apology for them.
Well researched and thought-provoking
The author’s open minded approach to difficult subjects was refreshing. I especially appreciate the references to research sources, which has some fun-looking further reading.
The author’s open minded approach to difficult subjects was refreshing. I especially appreciate the references to research sources, which has some fun-looking further reading.
I read this in the hopes of trying to understand the great divide in this country. The author does a great job in explains the views of the people interviewed. I found the book fascinating, frustrating and illuminating and would strongly recommend.
I remember watching the Daily Show segments where they’d go interview people at Trump rallies, and watch, my mouth agape, bewildered as to why anyone would ever support Trump. This book helps you understand why. The approach is sympathetic, thoughtful, and intersectional. I don’t know if I really walked away with this book with answers, but I certainly walked away with a better understanding of the American right. And maybe that will help some answers become clear.
It is so tempting and easy to simply delete or block a Trump supporting and/or conservative acquaintance or friend on social media, but unfortunately, I don’t think that brings us closer to finding a solution to the division in this country. If you don’t understand or listen to their thinking, how can you help change it? I think the ideals this country initially claimed to stand for are worth fighting for, to make them a reality. And I think reading this book is an important part of getting there, especially for those liberals who do not regularly interact with conservatives.
It is so tempting and easy to simply delete or block a Trump supporting and/or conservative acquaintance or friend on social media, but unfortunately, I don’t think that brings us closer to finding a solution to the division in this country. If you don’t understand or listen to their thinking, how can you help change it? I think the ideals this country initially claimed to stand for are worth fighting for, to make them a reality. And I think reading this book is an important part of getting there, especially for those liberals who do not regularly interact with conservatives.
Slow start but second half is great. Good insights. Still don't agree with the right, but maybe understand a little better.
Good sociology and a great voice. Left me wanting a little more about the "deep story."
Review originally published 10 August 2017 at Falling Letters.
I read Strangers in Their Own Land in June. I haven’t been able to stop talking about it. When I first heard of this book, I immediately put it on hold at the library. I once thought the beliefs and convictions of the American far right were beyond my understanding. How could I ever understand how someone could hold values so severely divergent from my own? In Strangers in Their Own Land, Arlie Russell Hochschild undertakes the important task of “truly listen[ing] to the other side in order to understand why they believe – and feel – the way they do”. Through Hochschild’s book, I have come to an understanding of how someone might hold the beliefs of the far right.
One friend of mine commented that they didn’t want to read this book because they didn’t want to empathize too closely with the actions the right. I don’t believe that would be an effect of reading Strangers in Their Own Land. My experience was that I could now understand the perspective and logic of the right, if not perfectly then at least to a better degree than before I read this book. I still think most of their fundamental beliefs are significantly flawed. For example, a few people spoke about their need to elect an anti-abortion candidate over one who was pro-environmental protection (even though they wanted the environment better protected) because God would judge them over the abortion issue and not the environment issue. I will likely never understand how someone can put their personal religion ahead of the rights of their fellow human beings. Yet I can now see how those feelings would influence their political actions.
Other aspects of their beliefs I do have a clearer understanding of. I have some small sympathy there because, from my perspective, these beliefs stem from misunderstanding, ignorance and fear. (If only we could facilitate better communication between the left and the right…) Hochschild crafts what she calls a ‘deep story’ halfway through the book. This is a story that “removes judgement [and] fact to tell us how things feel” (135). She writes in second person to share the experience of a Tea Party member. This narrative in the middle of the book helps put her research into perspective. Tea Partiers are emotional, feeling people, just like anyone else, and this story shows how they came to feel what they feel in today’s world.
Hochschild explores how Tea Partiers believe that liberals want them to feel bad for everyone who is ‘behind them in line’, when they feel “downtrodden themselves and want only to look ‘up’ to the elite” (219). They see people who receive social benefits as receiving a leg up, as jumping ahead in line when they don’t deserve to. One person is quoted as saying, “People think we’re not good people if we don’t feel sorry for blacks and immigrants and Syrian refugees. But I am a good person and I don’t feel sorry for them.” Well. :/ There’s the fundamental difference. I believe in acknowledging privilege and trying to make the world a better place for those who aren’t as lucky as me. It’s not exactly about feeling sorry for someone, yet that’s what the right wing is hearing from the left wing. Through Hochschild’s exploration of various social, religious, and community factors, I see now how someone might come to such right wing beliefs.
There are a lot more quotes I could use to exemplify how worked up I got while reading this book. I would shake the book and scream internally, “How can you think that?!” While I may have asked that question before, it becomes almost even more frustrating to ask that question when you can see the logic and emotions behind their beliefs, and you can see where the thread of their beliefs gets pulled away from your own. Yet that’s why this is such a good read – it took me into the minds of people I would never be able to comprehend otherwise.
The Bottom Line: For those of us on the left who want to understand why the American right wing is right wing, Strangers in Their Own Land makes for an invaluable read.
I read Strangers in Their Own Land in June. I haven’t been able to stop talking about it. When I first heard of this book, I immediately put it on hold at the library. I once thought the beliefs and convictions of the American far right were beyond my understanding. How could I ever understand how someone could hold values so severely divergent from my own? In Strangers in Their Own Land, Arlie Russell Hochschild undertakes the important task of “truly listen[ing] to the other side in order to understand why they believe – and feel – the way they do”. Through Hochschild’s book, I have come to an understanding of how someone might hold the beliefs of the far right.
One friend of mine commented that they didn’t want to read this book because they didn’t want to empathize too closely with the actions the right. I don’t believe that would be an effect of reading Strangers in Their Own Land. My experience was that I could now understand the perspective and logic of the right, if not perfectly then at least to a better degree than before I read this book. I still think most of their fundamental beliefs are significantly flawed. For example, a few people spoke about their need to elect an anti-abortion candidate over one who was pro-environmental protection (even though they wanted the environment better protected) because God would judge them over the abortion issue and not the environment issue. I will likely never understand how someone can put their personal religion ahead of the rights of their fellow human beings. Yet I can now see how those feelings would influence their political actions.
Other aspects of their beliefs I do have a clearer understanding of. I have some small sympathy there because, from my perspective, these beliefs stem from misunderstanding, ignorance and fear. (If only we could facilitate better communication between the left and the right…) Hochschild crafts what she calls a ‘deep story’ halfway through the book. This is a story that “removes judgement [and] fact to tell us how things feel” (135). She writes in second person to share the experience of a Tea Party member. This narrative in the middle of the book helps put her research into perspective. Tea Partiers are emotional, feeling people, just like anyone else, and this story shows how they came to feel what they feel in today’s world.
Hochschild explores how Tea Partiers believe that liberals want them to feel bad for everyone who is ‘behind them in line’, when they feel “downtrodden themselves and want only to look ‘up’ to the elite” (219). They see people who receive social benefits as receiving a leg up, as jumping ahead in line when they don’t deserve to. One person is quoted as saying, “People think we’re not good people if we don’t feel sorry for blacks and immigrants and Syrian refugees. But I am a good person and I don’t feel sorry for them.” Well. :/ There’s the fundamental difference. I believe in acknowledging privilege and trying to make the world a better place for those who aren’t as lucky as me. It’s not exactly about feeling sorry for someone, yet that’s what the right wing is hearing from the left wing. Through Hochschild’s exploration of various social, religious, and community factors, I see now how someone might come to such right wing beliefs.
There are a lot more quotes I could use to exemplify how worked up I got while reading this book. I would shake the book and scream internally, “How can you think that?!” While I may have asked that question before, it becomes almost even more frustrating to ask that question when you can see the logic and emotions behind their beliefs, and you can see where the thread of their beliefs gets pulled away from your own. Yet that’s why this is such a good read – it took me into the minds of people I would never be able to comprehend otherwise.
The Bottom Line: For those of us on the left who want to understand why the American right wing is right wing, Strangers in Their Own Land makes for an invaluable read.