Scan barcode
A review by bgprincipessa
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
3.0
2.5 stars
I do not think the publisher did this book any favors. Its marketing materials really do not match the contents of the book, which is a huge disservice to the author. The author who did a LOT of work and research and clearly did a good job of putting that into a book, but it's just not the book I was expecting to read.
Yes, it is about a liberal from California going to Louisiana and talking to a bunch of Tea Partiers, and trying to understand their point of view or as she calls it "trying to build an empathy wall." To do this, she uses a "keyhole" issue of the environment - many of their lives have been greatly affected by pollution, so she wants to understand why they would be against government assistance or regulations in these circumstances.
But in doing so, it seems that many other issues are pushed to the sidelines, and I don't feel like environmental regulations are a good comparison to things like abortion or race relations; it doesn't have the same human aspect. And, boy, I was really frustrated by many of the people profiled in here. I tried, but I cannot relate to someone who says they refuse to have sympathy for a starving child. And then another person presents as a reasonable idea for government money that we dig up WWII veterans from France and re-inter them here in the US. But... we can't help... the alive people who are here right now??
Oh, and there was an entire section on the "deep story" that the author uses to explain how many of these people came to feel the way they do about the current state of America, and it's told in the second person. No. Do not try to garner my sympathies by putting me in someone's shoes and saying what I would have thought in that situation, because it did not work at all.
If I had known this book was going to be so much about the environment going in, I would have had a much different perspective on what to expect. I double-checked and the environment isn't anywhere in the publisher summary (one brief mention of a sinkhole). It really skews the way this book comes across.
I do not think the publisher did this book any favors. Its marketing materials really do not match the contents of the book, which is a huge disservice to the author. The author who did a LOT of work and research and clearly did a good job of putting that into a book, but it's just not the book I was expecting to read.
Yes, it is about a liberal from California going to Louisiana and talking to a bunch of Tea Partiers, and trying to understand their point of view or as she calls it "trying to build an empathy wall." To do this, she uses a "keyhole" issue of the environment - many of their lives have been greatly affected by pollution, so she wants to understand why they would be against government assistance or regulations in these circumstances.
But in doing so, it seems that many other issues are pushed to the sidelines, and I don't feel like environmental regulations are a good comparison to things like abortion or race relations; it doesn't have the same human aspect. And, boy, I was really frustrated by many of the people profiled in here. I tried, but I cannot relate to someone who says they refuse to have sympathy for a starving child. And then another person presents as a reasonable idea for government money that we dig up WWII veterans from France and re-inter them here in the US. But... we can't help... the alive people who are here right now??
Oh, and there was an entire section on the "deep story" that the author uses to explain how many of these people came to feel the way they do about the current state of America, and it's told in the second person. No. Do not try to garner my sympathies by putting me in someone's shoes and saying what I would have thought in that situation, because it did not work at all.
If I had known this book was going to be so much about the environment going in, I would have had a much different perspective on what to expect. I double-checked and the environment isn't anywhere in the publisher summary (one brief mention of a sinkhole). It really skews the way this book comes across.