Overview

This work is an account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England. Its insight is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. It draws upon eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny, chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing - sometimes all at once.

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9781566635059

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Reviews

This devastating account and analysis of underclass life and the elite ideas which support it is a classic for our times.--Thomas Sowell

Truthful-therefore morally courageous and intellectually rigorous. -- Norman Podhoretz Dalrymple's vivid writing and often heartbreaking stories rise above his deeply felt social analysis. Publishers Weekly Brilliant social analysis...a master chronicle of life at the bottom. -- Hilton Kramer Lucid, unsentimental, and profoundly honest...Dalrymple is one of the great essayists of our age. -- Denis Dutton, Editor, Arts & Letters Daily This devastating account and analysis of underclass life-and the elite ideas which support it-is a classic for our times. -- Thomas Sowell, Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University It is a truism that ideas have consequences, but a truism is rarely illustrated as implacably as in this book. -- George F. Will, syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Theodore Dalrymple is the best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams. -- Peggy Noonan Mr. Daniels's best essays cast a spell almost from the opening line. New York Sun A landmark experience is reading Life at the Bottom... Detroit Free Press Once in a long while a writer comes along with a vision so powerful that it shakes you. Theodore Dalrymple is that kind of writer. -- Bruce Ramsey Liberty Press

His gift for storytelling will keep readers turning pages.

Author Information

Theodore Dalrymple is a physician and psychiatrist who practices in England. He writes a column for the London Spectator, contributes frequently to the Daily Telegraph, and is a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. His other books include Our Culture, What's Left of It, Mass Listeria, and So Little Done. He lives in Birmingham, England.

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