Matthew Desmond

In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow. Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.

In this rugged account of a rugged profession, Matthew Desmond explores the heart and soul of the wildland firefighter. Having joined a firecrew in Northern Arizona as a young man, Desmond relates his experiences with intimate knowledge and native ease, adroitly balancing emotion with analysis and action with insight. On the Fireline shows that these firefighters aren’t the adrenaline junkies or romantic heroes as they’re so often portrayed. An immersion into a dangerous world, On the Fireline is also a sophisticated analysis of a high-risk profession—and a captivating read. “Gripping . . . a masterful account of how young men are able to face down wildfire, and why they volunteer for such an enterprise in the first place.”—David Grazian, Sociological Forum “Along with the risks and sorrow, Desmond also presents the humor and comaraderie of ordinary men performing extraordinary tasks. . . . A good complement to Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire . Recommended.”— Library Journal

Racial Domination, Racial Progress: The Sociology of Race in America looks at race in a clear and accessible way, allowing students to understand how racial domination and progress work in all aspects of society. Examining how race is not a matter of separate entities but of systems of social relations, this text unpacks how race works in the political, economic, residential, legal, educational, aesthetic, associational, and intimate fields of social life. Racial Domination, Racial Progress is a work of uncompromising intersectionality, which refuses to artificially separate race and ethnicity from class and gender, while, at the same time, never losing sight of race as its primary focus. The authors seek to connect with their readers in a way that combines disciplined reasoning with a sense of engagement and passion, conveying sophisticated ideas in a clear and compelling fashion.

A groundbreaking approach to thinking about race and racism today. Matthew Desmond and Mustafa Emirbayer, authors of The Racial Order , have written an undergraduate textbook on race relations for the twenty-first century. Every chapter of Race in America examines how racism intersects with other forms of social division―those based on gender, class, sexuality, ability, religion, and nationhood―as well as how whiteness surrounds us in unnamed ways that produce and reproduce a multitude of privileges for white people. Featuring a table of contents that is organized around race and racism in different aspects of social life, Race in America explores the connections between individual and institution, past and present, and the powerful and the powerless.

Copy refers to RSF, Volume 1, issues 1 & 2 Widening inequality has received much attention recently, but most of the focus has been on the top one percent or the middle class. The problems of those at the very bottom of society remain largely invisible. Along with the Great Recession, factors such as rising housing costs, welfare reform, mass incarceration, suppressed wages, and pervasive joblessness have contributed to deepening poverty in America. In this inaugural double issue of RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, a distinguished roster of poverty scholars from multiple disciplines focuses on families experiencing “severe deprivation”: acute, compounded, and persistent economic hardship. Over twenty million families in America live in deep poverty, on incomes below half the federal poverty threshold, yet Liana Fox and colleagues find that government taxes and transfers lift millions of families out of deep poverty each year. Searching even further below the poverty line, Luke Shaefer, Kathryn Edin, and Elizabeth Talbert find that the number of children in households experiencing chronic extreme poverty—living on $2 or less per day—increased by over 240 percent between 1996 and 2012. Focusing on the elderly, Helen Levy shows that failing health exacerbates low-income seniors’ hardship by driving up their out-of-pocket medical spending. Other contributors examine the relationship between violence and severe deprivation. Through longitudinal interviews with former prisoners in Boston, Bruce Western reveals the ubiquity of violence in the life course of disadvantaged young men. And Laurence Ralph draws on years of ethnography in Chicago to document how families and communities cope with the trauma of gun violence. Other studies in this issue show that mass incarceration has changed the nature of poverty in recent decades, with consequences ranging from increased levels of deprivation among children of incarcerated parents to housing insecurity among parolees, which increases their risk for recidivism. Finally, several papers devise novel methods and concepts relevant to the study of severe deprivation. Kristin Perkin and Robert Sampson develop an innovative measure of “compounded disadvantage” that groups individual and ecological hardship, while Megan Comfort and colleagues pioneer a new approach to ethnographic fieldwork that combines embedded social work with participant observation. This issue provides in-depth analyses of the causes and human costs of extreme disadvantage in one of the richest countries in the world and offers a new paradigm for understanding the changing face of poverty in America. In an age of economic extremes, understanding how and why severe deprivation persists will be vital for policymakers and practitioners attempting to deliver relief to the nation’s most marginalized families.

Estados Unidos, el país más rico del mundo, tiene más pobreza que cualquier otra democracia avanzada. ¿Por qué esta tierra de abundancia permite que uno de cada ocho de sus niños no tenga cubiertas las necesidades básicas, y que muchos de sus ciudadanos malvivan y mueran en las calles?El aclamado sociólogo Matthew Desmond trata de mostrar cómo los estadounidenses adinerados, consciente o inconscientemente, mantienen pobres a los pobres. Quienes tenemos seguridad financiera explotamos a los pobres, reduciendo sus salarios y obligándolos a pagar de más por la vivienda y el acceso al efectivo y al crédito. Priorizamos el subsidio de nuestra riqueza sobre el alivio de la pobreza, diseñando un estado de bienestar que da más a quienes menos necesitan. Acumulamos oportunidades en comunidades exclusivas, creando zonas de riqueza concentrada a la vez que creamos zonas de desesperación concentrada. Algunas vidas se hacen pequeñas para que otras puedan crecer. Este libro brinda nuevas formas de pensar sobre un problema moral urgente, pero también ayuda a imaginar soluciones. Desmond presenta un argumento original y ambicioso para acabar con la nos invita a convertirnos en abolicionistas de la pobreza, comprometidos en una política de pertenencia colectiva para marcar el comienzo de una nueva era de prosperidad compartida.Libro del año 2023 del The New Yorker , Time , Esquire y Library Journal .«Una narración eficaz que ilustra cómo la pobreza se ha convertido en una forma de vida»The Guardian«Una mirada crítica sobre aquellos que infligen y perpetúan condiciones insoportables para otros»The Boston Globe«Desmond habla con pasión y elocuencia en nombre de los más necesitados de Estados Unidos»Oprah Daily«Un llamamiento urgente a nuestra conciencia nacional, erosionada durante décadas de consumismo y avaricia corporativa»Harper’s MagazinePlease This audiobook is in Spanish.

This Matthew Desmond Bestselling 2 Books Set 1. Poverty and Profit in the American City 9780553447453 2. Poverty, by America 9780593239933

À l’approche des élections présidentielles, les États-Unis connaissent une crise démocratique. Ce dossier, coordonné par Anne-Lorraine Bujon, en interroge les soubassements culturels : dans une société fragmentée, les valeurs de l’Amérique se sont en effet retournées contre elles-mêmes. À lire aussi dans ce numéro : Iran et Israël : meilleurs ennemis ; Sénégal : un nouveau contrat social ? ; Le régime de surveillance olympique ; Émeutes et violences policières ; Comprendre l’histoire juive de France ; Mémoire du catholicisme.

En este libro de referencia, el aclamado sociólogo Matthew Desmond se basa en la historia, la investigación y en reportajes para mostrar cómo los estadounidenses adinerados, consciente o inconscientemente, mantienen pobres a los pobres. Aquellos de nosotros que tenemos seguridad financiera explotamos a los pobres, reduciendo sus salarios y obligándolos a pagar de más por la vivienda y el acceso al efectivo y al crédito.Escrito con elegancia y bien argumentado, este libro nos brinda nuevas formas de pensar sobre un problema moralmente urgente. También nos ayuda a imaginar soluciones

Pobreza y lucro en la ciudad del siglo XXIGanador del Premio Pulitzer de No Ficción 2017Incluso en las zonas más desoladas de las ciudades estadounidenses, los desahucios solían ser acontecimientos raros. Hoy en día, sin embargo, las familias pobres se ven obligadas a invertir más de la mitad de sus ingresos en el alquiler de sus viviendas, y el desahucio se ha convertido en algo cotidiano, especialmente en el caso de las madres solteras. De los barrios marginales a los refugios, de los juzgados a los guetos, Matthew Desmond pasó años registrando las historias de aquellos que luchan por sobrevivir y no se dan por vencidos.Desahuciadas nos lleva a los barrios más pobres de Milwaukee para conocer la odisea de ocho familias al borde del abismo, como Arleen, una madre soltera que trata de criar a sus dos hijos con los 20 dólares al mes que le sobran después de pagar su deteriorado apartamento; Scott, un apacible enfermero consumido por su adicción a la heroína; Lamar, un minusválido ahogado por las deudas; Vanetta, que participa en un atraco fallido tras ver recortado su horario laboral… Todos gastan casi todo lo que tienen en el alquiler, y sus destinos están en manos de dos Sherrena Tarver, «emprendedora» de los barrios pobres, y Tobin Charney, que dirige uno de los peores parques de casas prefabricadas de Milwaukee. Ambos odian a algunos de sus arrendatarios y son más condescendientes con otros, pero como dice «El amor no paga las facturas». Con niños o sin ellos, todos recibirán una orden de desahucioLa crítica ha dicho...«Un estudio imprescindible para la comprensión de la pobreza y la explotación, y con nuevas propuestas para combatirlas».Owen Jones«Si pudiera exigirle al Presidente que leyera un libro, sería este».Zadie Smith«Desahuciadas se cuenta entre los mejores libros de justicia social».Ann Patchett«Atrapante y conmovedor»Jesmyn WardPlease This audiobook is in Spanish.