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Someplace Like America: Tales From The New Great Depression (2013)

by Dale Maharidge(Favorite Author)

4.32 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0520274512 (ISBN13: 9780520274518)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

University of California Press

review 1: What starts out as a mess of a book becomes incredibly informative, emotional, and worrisome. Journalist Dale Maharidge and photographer Michael S. Williamson have documented America's poor for thirty years. This book stands as a tour of duty through poverty, economic collapse, job loss, homelessness, and how people in America are affected over the long-term. The book starts in 1982 and follows peoples' stories through 2011. Hence the messiness of the book. What possible way is there to trace the stories of people starting in the 1980s to the present day? No neatness or clean narrative edges are in any of the reportage. In fact, some of the most powerful parts of the book come when stories break down, and people are unable to be found in later years, for whatever reason. M... moreaharidge suggests many parallels and stark differences between now and the 1930s-era great depression. There is no current equivalent to FDR, and the historic American government's support of workers during the depression, white and blue class alike. This work is a totally necessary read for anybody interested in history, today's recession, journalism, photography, and figuring out what to do. And what is there to do? Maharidge struggles to answer, but provides more than enough options. Gardening is a major one, along with the creation of long-term communities. Or even short-term communities. Something to focus on what's happening on the ground in America. This book is my optimum format of written journalism mixed with documentary photos. As a side note, while reading this book I tried watching the 2011 oscar winner for best adapted screenplay, The Descendants. I had a real hard time paying attention to the movie, and found myself very frustrated by the plot. Even re-reading what I just wrote here is extremely unnerving. Why was I suddenly more angry about a movie plot, with sleazy Hawaiian land owners? It might have to do with reading about how wealthy the very few are, and how many American's live in poverty. Someplace like America will stick with me for a long time to come.
review 2: Great book! I loved professors like this when I was in college. This is one book that explains what is going on in this country in an enjoyable-to-read format without being straight scholarly. There are some quotes I want to remember:"Obama caved in to Republican demands without a fight and extended tax cuts for multimillionaires, which meant that the richest 0.1 percent of Americans each received an average tax cut of $370,000. To secure these tax cuts for the wealthy, Republicans had held hostage the unemployment benefits for the 2 million jobless who were about to fall off the rolls, claiming that helping the jobless would increase the national debt - a debt that...had originally ballooned in part as a result of those same tax cuts for the extremely rich. less

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