This Land Is Their Land - by Barbara Ehrenreich (Paperback)

About the Book

In her first work of satirical commentary, "The Worst Years of Our Lives," Barbara Ehrenreich skewered the Reagan era. Now she brilliantly dissects one of the cruelest decades in memory-the 2000s-in which she finds a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.

Book Synopsis

America in the 'aughts--hilariously skewered, brilliantly dissected, and darkly diagnosed by one of the country's most prominent social critics

Now in paperback, Barbara Ehrenreich's widely acclaimed This Land Is Their Land takes the measure of what we are left with after the cruelest decade in memory and finds lurid extremes all around. While members of the moneyed elite have bought up congressmen, many in the working class can barely buy lunch. While a wealthy minority obsessively consumes cosmetic surgery, the poor often go without health care for their children. And while the Masters of the Universe have thrown themselves into the casino economy, the less fortunate have been fed a diet of morality, marriage, and abstinence. With perfect satiric pitch, Ehrenreich reveals a country scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.

Full of wit and generosity, these reports from a divided nation--including new and unpublished essays--confirm once again that Ehrenreich is, as the San Francisco Chronicle proclaims, "essential reading."

Review Quotes

"Provocative, angry and funny, often at the same time." - Kirkus Reviews

"Ehrenreich's vicious, hilarious and striking tour de force of American culture and society today addresses a range of issues from class warfare to health care, higher education to feminism to religious institutionalization and political power. She weighs in with wit, clarity and authority that few authors can match." - Publishers Weekly

"The cliché that you laugh until you cry takes on new meaning when reading This Land is Their Land. Incisive, trenchant and furious, it celebrates the have-nots. At the same time, it asks an important question: What will it take for America's beleaguered residents to rise up and say, 'Enough'?" - The Indypendent

About the Author

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) was a bestselling author and political activist, whose more than a dozen books included Nickel and Dimed, which the New York Times described as "a classic in social justice literature", Bait and Switch, Bright-sided, This Land Is Their Land, Dancing In The Streets, and Blood Rites. An award-winning journalist, she frequently contributed to Harper's, The Nation, The New York Times, and TIME magazine. Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, when it was still a bustling mining town. She studied physics at Reed College, and earned a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. Rather than going into laboratory work, she got involved in activism, and soon devoted herself to writing her innovative journalism.