Life at the Bottom - by Theodore Dalrymple (Paperback)

About the Book

This is a searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England. Dr. Dalrymple's key insight is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values.

Book Synopsis

A searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist.

Review Quotes

A landmark experience is reading Life at the Bottom...

Brilliant social analysis...a master chronicle of life at the bottom.

Dalrymple's vivid writing and often heartbreaking stories rise above his deeply felt social analysis.

It is a truism that ideas have consequences, but a truism is rarely illustrated as implacably as in this book.

Lucid, unsentimental, and profoundly honest...Dalrymple is one of the great essayists of our age.

Mr. Daniels's best essays cast a spell almost from the opening line.

Once in a long while a writer comes along with a vision so powerful that it shakes you. Theodore Dalrymple is that kind of writer.

Theodore Dalrymple is the best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams.

This devastating account and analysis of underclass life-and the elite ideas which support it-is a classic for our times.

Truthful-therefore morally courageous and intellectually rigorous.

About the Author

Theodore Dalrymple is a physician and psychiatrist who practices in England. He writes a column for the London Spectator, contributes frequently to the Daily Telegraph, and is a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. His other books include Our Culture, What's Left of It, Mass Listeria, and So Little Done. He lives in Birmingham, England.