Scan barcode
A review by mrswythe89
Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
3.0
I got really annoyed with this initially because I felt she was making generalisations about modern culture vs. whatever the culture was like when she was young that I didn't think were accurate. And the first part of the book has a lot about what it was like for her and stuff, and you know, fair enough, but I didn't feel she was making arguments so much as making statements, like, this is the way it is. It lacked rigor -- all this stuff about let's return to simplicity and how the young are all me-me-me and blah blah blah. I don't know if this is a function of the fact that this was written in the '90s and it's now 20 years later, so maybe it's just that I'm missing what her writing is responding to.
It was also very very America-focused -- again, fair enough and what I expected, but that might be why I didn't get that much from it initially.
That said, about halfway through it got really interesting and instructive -- from Chapter 8, I'd say. From that through to 14 it's very good -- the chapters on Class and Race, Feminism and Class Power, White Poverty and Class Claims I found particularly useful. And all those chapters are very America-focused, and useful because they're so specific. So there you go!
It was also very very America-focused -- again, fair enough and what I expected, but that might be why I didn't get that much from it initially.
That said, about halfway through it got really interesting and instructive -- from Chapter 8, I'd say. From that through to 14 it's very good -- the chapters on Class and Race, Feminism and Class Power, White Poverty and Class Claims I found particularly useful. And all those chapters are very America-focused, and useful because they're so specific. So there you go!