Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy

Hardback
3.841

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Description

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class through the author’s own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck. The Vance family story began with hope in postwar America. J.D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

Book Information

Main Genre
Specialized Books
Sub Genre
Society & Social Sciences
Format
Hardback
Pages
264
Price
18.50 €

Posts

7
All
4

Interessant.

Das Buch hat bei uns existiert und ich hatte nichts zu lesen. J. D. Vance, derzeitiger Vice unter Trump erzählt seine Lebensgeschichte. Er ist in Armut aufgewachsen, mit alkohol- & drogenabhängigen Familenmitgliedern. Von seinen Erlebnissen aus Kindheit und Jugend zieht er v.a. Schlüsse über die weiße Arbeiterklasse in Amerika. Spannend zu lesen, um vielleicht einen Einblick in die Maga-Bewegung er erhalten. Seine Wahrnehmung von Sozialhilfe fand ich eher abstoßend und mich hat es auch regelmäßig irritiert, dass er so eine Autobiographie überhaupt schon geschrieben hat. Da ist auch sehr viel Selbstdarstellung dabei. Trotzdem liest es sich sehr gut.

4.5

Punktabzug für sein character development der letzten zehn Jahre. Das Buch ist aber wirklich gut.

S.229 „Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly.“

3

Die Erzählungen aus dem Leben von J.D. Vance sind schon durchaus bewegend. Eine Schwierigkeit jagt die nächste, aber irgendwie erreicht er dennoch seinen eigenen American Dream. Seine eigenen Erfahrungen ordnet er auch sehr gut in einen gesamtgesellschaftlichen Kontext. Allerdings kommt seine Politik stark zum Vorschein und manche seiner Schlüsse, z.B. zum Thema Sozialpolitik, finde ich etwas fragwürdig. Hätte vielleicht weggelassen werden können.

1

Braucht kein Mensch

LESETIPP FÜR - Keine dramatische Familiengeschichte, sondern eher ein politisches - ich habe es geschafft trotz widriger Verhältnisse. Wer das lesen will, ohne Lösung oder Hilfestellung oder Emotionen, der wird glücklich.

3.5

Ein sehr guter Einblick in das arme Amerika der aktuellen Zeit und das dort die Armut deutlich drastischer ist als man das von Europa aus bemerkt.

3

3.5⭐️ read for sure. This was a great read and interesting perspective of the low income population in the States, more so from a white man's perspective. Typically, low income is synonymous with the minority populations (black, Hispanic and others) but it's interesting to see how the same problems in minority communities is felt by the poor white communities. I definitely like his perspective on policies not being helpful to the actual problem and it points to a very big descrepancy between what the policy makers "think is right" to the actual needs of these minority groups. I don't think it's possible for one to make policy without at least more than half contribution from the communities in need of those policies. Still, at the end of the day, it is possible to build a good life even though you have gone through a difficult growing experience. It will take GOD, deep family ties and a lot of emotional/mental work to unlearn the negative behaviours.

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