| This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 18 reviews)
Sales Rank: 11626
Category: Book
Author: Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Studio: Metropolitan Books
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Books
Label: Metropolitan Books
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0805088407
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.93
EAN: 9780805088403
ASIN: 0805088407
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Release Date: June 24, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
America in the ?aughts?hilariously skewered, brilliantly dissected, and darkly diagnosed by the bestselling social critic hailed as ?the soul mate?* of Jonathan Swift Barbara Ehrenreich?s first book of satirical commentary, The Worst Years of Our Lives, about the Reagan era, was received with bestselling acclaim. The one problem was the title: couldn?t some prophetic fact-checker have seen that the worst years of our lives?far worse?were still to come? Here they are, the 2000s, and in This Land Is Their Land, Ehrenreich subjects them to the most biting and incisive satire of her career. Taking the measure of what we are left with after the cruelest decade in memory, Ehrenreich finds lurid extremes all around. While members of the moneyed elite can buy 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 corporate C-suites are now nests of criminality, the less fortunate are fed a diet of morality, marriage, and abstinence. Ehrenreich?s antidotes are as sardonic as they are spot-on: pet insurance for your kids; Salvation Army fashions for those who can no longer afford Wal-Mart; and boundless rage against those who have given us a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty. Full of wit and generosity, these reports from a divided nation show once again that Ehrenreich is, as Molly Ivins said, ?good for the soul.? ?*The Times (London)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Deserves 25 stars September 1, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ehrenreich has written some pretty solid stuff. Her "Nickel and Dimed" surveyed how she got some low-paying jobs and how she attempted to survive with them. In "Nickel and Dimed" she examined the white collar job search with all its frivolities--and failures. The list of her writings at the beginning of this text is impressive. So I expected comments from the eyes of a sharp, astute observer of contemporary affairs. I wasn't let down.
Don't get me wrong. This isn't some scholarly, dry diatribe. Rather, it's witty and observant on any number of contemporary subjects. In fact, truth be told, while reading it, I was also listening to the recorded version. It's the type of thing you might want to listen to while getting otherwise monotonous things done.
I warn you, though, as at least one other reviewer commented, it can be pretty depressing. Even the witty parts! For example, there's a commentary on one of the self-help texts particularly popular today. I think that's the essay she ends that, essentially, she'll one of these days be writing from a subsistance farm. (That people in 21st century America take balderdash like that seriously is frightening!)
Even in the introduction, she refers to that book, and to the fact that in the fiction category today, what's selling off the shelves is on the topic of a teenage, apprentice magician (my words, not hers).
What do you want to know about? Health insurance? CEO obscene pay scales? Abortion. Abstinence? Health insurance for your pets?? Each essay is just a few pages and will twist you a little. You won't know whether to laugh or cry.
As I think of it, perhaps the greatest value of the text is that it may entice some people not in Ehrenreich's "choir" to join it. Such a person can read it, laugh, then think about it while realizing that, "you know, what she says is true."
Yes, it is. And we need to acknowledge that and move onto a civilized society.
Read this, enjoy it, and passi it on. Ehrenreich's are words of wisdom!
GREED is killing America August 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A must read for concerned citizens tho I don't see how we'd ever be able to turn the tide.
This is an easy quick read. And Ms. Ehrenreich puts it so well. But a rich person with a conscience is a rare bird. So nothing she or anyone else says will change a thing. The world of the rich is gated in denial. Glenn Beck that conservative political commentator on CNN claims to be a devout Christian yet his "Conservative Creed" is cold blooded/inhuman Survival-of-the-fittest, dog eat dog is the conservative, republican and libertarian way. It's not the moral nor civilized way tho. Children are the ones, in the end, who get hurt when government programs are cut.
I especially enjoyed her digs at religion and it's obsession with stem cell research, gay marriage (which I don't believe in either but...), and abortion. Small potatoes when compared to poverty, children with out health insurance, toxic pollution, the oil peak and decline, coming population explosions and most importantly the WATER shortages from droughts and over consumption/over population.
Excerpts
"It's hard to keep getting bent out of shape about a zygote or embryonic stem cell when you can't afford to take your sick three-year old to a doctor."
"...show me the passage in the Bible that bans stem cell research. See if you can find the tiniest allusion to abortion. Yes there is homophobia in the Bible, along with endorsements of slavery, and a weird obsession with animal sacrifice. Not a word, it should be mentioned, about gay marriage. Poverty and economic injustice, on the other hand get over three thousand hits in the Bible. Jesus was a hard-liner on the redistribution of wealth: remember what he told the rich man who wanted to get into heaven? Imagine what he'd have to say about the Bush tax cuts [for the rich]."
"If we are responsible for our actions, as most religions insist, then God should be too."
"Most countries are proud to have a health care system. It's an organized way of helping the sick and infirm - a mark of genuine civilization."
I disagree with her on immigration tho.
 Liberal Lite August 27, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Don't get me wrong, I agree with the majority of these essays. However, after spending the last couple of months reading "Shock Doctrine," "The Way of the World," "What Happened" and "Your Government Failed You," I found nothing really enlightening in these short-but-not-sweet essays. I discovered after the fact that these were previously published pieces from various blog entries, etc., and would say that they are very well-suited for that forum. The problem is, it appears that they were plunked into the book without editing -- no dates on any of them and a rather incomplete list at the back of where some of them originally appeared.
The result is that many of these pieces are already stale. Other pieces which would have been humorous in an off-the-cuff way merely give the impression that the author doesn't take a lot of time to dig into her subjects. I know that she can do better when she takes the time to immerse herself as in "Nickel and Dimed."
Not bad, per se -- ok, even, if you need something to read in quick snatches -- but really not much better than a good argument with a co-worker at the water cooler.
Fast Easy Read August 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is very informative and a fast read. Every chapter is about 2 pages but filled with facts. It is an easy read and makes a good bedtime book because you can read a few pages and you've covered a few topics. After I read this book, I gave it to my sister to read and she thought it was very interesting and well written. My sister isn't into politics so I think this is a good book that will inform all sorts of readers about what is going on in our world today.
Their land August 4, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Well-written, humorous, on-the-money, fair critical assessment, witty, captivating, enjoyable- definitely recommend. After reading this book, I ordered 2 other books by the author.
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