Stolen Pride
Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
In her first book since the widely acclaimed Strangers in Their Own Land, National Book Award finalist and bestselling author Arlie Russell Hochschild now ventures to Appalachia, uncovering the "pride paradox" that has given the right's appeals such resonance.
A 2024 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Pick
A New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year
One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024
Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction
For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"?
Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation, where the city was reeling: coal jobs had left, crushing poverty persisted, and a deadly drug crisis struck the region. Although Pikeville was in the political center thirty years ago, by 2016, 80 percent of the district's population voted for Donald Trump. Her brilliant exploration of the town's response to a white nationalist march in 2017 — a rehearsal for the deadly Unite the Right march that would soon take place in Charlottesville, Virginia — takes us deep inside a torn and suffering community.
Hochschild focuses on a group swept up in the shifting political landscape: blue-collar men. In small churches, hillside hollers, roadside diners, trailer parks, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Hochschild introduces us to unforgettable people, and offers an original lens through which to see them and the wider world. In Stolen Pride, Hochschild incisively explores our dangerous times, even as she also points a way forward.
"A piercing . . . impressive and nuanced assessment of a critical factor in American politics." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shame is driving the rightward turn in economically depressed rural areas, according to this piercing analysis. Hochschild, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, revisits the themes of Strangers in Their Own Land, this time interviewing the residents of Pikeville, Ky.—located in one of the whitest, poorest, and most conservative counties in the country—to understand how the once purple coal town turned deep red. She finds that many in Pikeville are entangled in what she calls "the pride paradox," or the tension between dwindling economic opportunities and the belief that one's successes or failures in life reflect one's abilities. Residents consequently blame themselves and feel ashamed when their lives don't turn out how they'd hoped, which, Hochschild argues, drives them to support Donald Trump, whose shamelessness provides a "cathartic release" for his followers. Hochschild's empathetic profiles suggest a sinister side to American individualism as ordinary people hold themselves responsible for problems that arise from systemic wrongdoing, like opioid addiction brought on by Purdue Pharma's pill pushing. She also debunks common misconceptions about Trump's base, revealing that "those most enthralled with Donald Trump were not at the very bottom" but instead were those "who aspired to do well" or "who were doing well within a region that was not." It's an impressive and nuanced assessment of a critical factor in American politics.
