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Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic “has set a new standard for reporting on poverty” (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review). 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. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: President Barack Obama, The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Esquire, BuzzFeed, Fortune, San Francisco Chronicle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Politico, The Week, Chicago Public Library, BookPage, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Shelf Awareness WINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • The PEN/New England Award • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE “Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books.”—Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth “Gripping and moving—tragic, too.”—Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones “Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty.”—San Francisco Chronicle Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown; Reprint edition (February 28, 2017)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553447459


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 53


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.15 x 0.95 x 8 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #4,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #3 in Sociology of Urban Areas #6 in Poverty #7 in Sociology of Class


#3 in Sociology of Urban Areas:


#6 in Poverty:


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Top Amazon Reviews


  • Insightful and Thoroughly Researched Work
In this work of non-fiction, Matthew Desmond, a Harvard sociologist, takes us to Milwaukee where we become intimately engaged in the lives of eight impoverished families. Among these, we meet Arleen- who is trying to raise her children on food stamps, Crystal – who has been in and out of the foster system since she was a young child, and Scott – who is a successful nurse-turned heroin addict who lost it all (among others). We also meet their landlords Sherrena (who owns many dilapidated inner-city units) and Tobin (the owner of a run-down trailer park). Through thorough and expansive research, Desmond walks the reader through the lives of these people — their decision making processes, the choices (and non-choices) that led them to where they are, and the laws and loopholes that work against the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society. To me, Evicted was an extremely worthwhile read, for many reasons. First, I do not read a lot of non-fiction, because the writing is often too clinical to hold my interest. This book though, reads like a novel. Desmond lived with, and visited with many of these families on a daily basis for three years. We come to know them as we would a friend, and he tells their stories in a chronological, plot-like way. I wanted to know what would happen next to each of them– I felt invested in their well-being, and frustrated when I read about their lives’ numerous drawbacks. Desmond did an excellent job of writing this book from a non-biased view. I personally believe this to be an accomplishment in and of itself; since he witnessed most of the noted events first-hand, I can only imagine how difficult it was to keep his opinion free and clear of his writing. Yet, he managed it and I appreciated that. I despise when an author tells me, either implicitly or explicitly how I am supposed to feel about about an event. In doing this, an author is not only suggesting that his/her thought and opinion is the “right” opinion, but also that I’m not intelligent enough to draw my own conclusions — which is an assumption based in condescension and inaccuracy, and is wholly insulting. Desmond left his own opinion out of his reporting – he recalled these events masterfully – completely and chock full of detail, but without any implied judgement. His writing is powerful, and allows the reader to form their own opinions. Further, Desmond provides the reader with significant background information regarding the laws around food-stamps, eviction processes, and the inaccessibility of resources for some of our cities’ most impoverished residents. Because he explained these laws and processes in layman’s terms, I was able to understand why a person might make the decisions that they did. I value logic, and when I cannot understand the logic behind one’s decisions, I become frustrated and impatient. For example, one of the women spent much of her food-stamp allocation for the month on lobster tails and lemon meringue pie. For one meal. Normally, I would think, “Now see — this, this here is the problem.” The author understood that his reader would feel this way, and went on to explain just how difficult it is to drive oneself out of grinding poverty. “People lived with so many compounded limitations that it was difficult to imagine the amount of good behavior or self-control that would allow them to lift themselves out of poverty….those at the bottom had little hope of climbing out even if they pinched every penny. So they chose not to. Instead, they tried to survive in color, to season the suffering with pleasure.” This actually made sense to me. I cannot even begin to imagine feeling so low, and with the author’s careful and logical explanation, I realized that until I live it, I shouldn’t judge it. This brings me to my final point. I admittedly understand little about our nation’s housing laws and the difficulties that are faced by those who live within the throes of urban decay. I know how expensive apartments are (the Boston area has some of the highest rents and mortgages in the country), and how exhausting the housing search can be. However, even at my poorest moments, when my bank account was completely in the red, I was not without my soft resources (successful parents who’d rather not watch their child become homeless or starve, friends with the ability and willingness to help, a graduate level education and the ability to procure a job that would pay me a steady salary). In short – I can’t fathom the struggle. The people highlighted in this book do not have these soft resources — they are completely on their own. The author surely knew that most of his readers, (with the ability to spend $13.99 on his book for their reading pleasure), might not be able to comprehend the lives and struggles that these people are living — but he made me want to try. I wasn’t left with any anger over the spending or perceived wasting of tax dollars; rather, I finished the book with a confused feeling – a “in what universe does that law make sense?” type of sentiment. I’m sure this was Desmond’s hope for his book, to provide his reader with an eye-opening experience which, at least in my case, was successful. To read more of my reviews, go to my blog at [...] ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2016 by Maggie L

  • A Must Read
If your humanity needs a reminder that all people deserve safe and affordable housing, please read this. Backed by rigorous studies and presented with heart.
Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2024 by ace_toad

  • Sobering and unsettling
This is an incredibly powerful book about the housing crisis for low income families. In my career I have worked with some people who are homeless or who struggle to find or keep housing. I thought that I had a fair grasp on what people experience. This book showed me that I have a lot to learn about the toll of the daily, monthly, and yearly fight to maintain housing. Researcher and author Matthew Desmond takes us along on his ethnographic journey to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From 2008-2009, he follows 8 families struggling to make it and two landlords who profit from those struggles. Dr. Desmond artfully blends the personal stories with a lot of facts and statistics so that both are equally interesting. We see things from the perspective of landlords and tenants. The tenants highlighted are underemployed, unemployed, disabled, in trouble with the law, or drug addicted. They have no support system except each other and that is tenuous at best. Each one desires a place that is safe and warm to call home. Much of the book looks at the eviction process, which is strongly skewed to benefit landlords. While a couple of the people featured in this book “succeed” in digging out, this is not a feel good book with a happy ending. In addition to showing us the problem, the author proposes some solutions. The key to that solution is the idea that housing is a basic human right. That will be a hard sell in some circles. There were many times while reading this book in my cozy and quiet house, surrounded by things that I own, drinking a glass of wine that I felt profoundly uncomfortable. Not that I didn’t work for what I have, but life is a lot easier when your parents and grandparents had at least the basics. Dr. Desmond does an excellent job of illustrating how sub-standard living, eviction, and homelessness serves to keep people from being able to get ahead. There are so many take away points from this book, I could go on and on. I really enjoyed the section where the author explains his research methodology and his experience of living in the poorest sections of Milwaukee. This book is very well written and thoroughly researched. They don’t hand out the Pulitzer to just anybody! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2018 by SassyPants

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