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From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.
The Vance family story begins hopefully 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 their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.
But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their 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.
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Subjects
Mountain people, Family, Social mobility, Working class whites, Case studies, Economic conditions, Social conditions, Biography, Arbeitssoziologie, Sociology, Umschulungswerkstätten für Siedler und Auswanderer, Ausgrenzung, Sozialer Wandel, Rural, Armut, Poverty & Homelessness, Kleinstadt, Families, SOCIAL SCIENCE, Familiensoziologie, Economic history, Working class, Arbeiterklasse, Working class white people, Biografie<U+fffd>en, Sociale mobiliteit, Armoede, Wei<U+fffd>e, Umschulungswerkst<U+fffd>atten f<U+fffd>ur Siedler und Auswanderer, General, Nonfiction, Umschulungswerkst atten f ur Siedler und Auswanderer, Working class, history, Working class, united states, Whites, history, Social mobility, united states, Kentucky, economic conditions, Kentucky, social conditions, Ohio, biography, Kentucky, biography, Ohio, economic conditions, nyt:hardcover-nonfiction=2016-08-14, New York Times bestseller, Large print books, nyt:paperback-nonfiction=2018-05-20, Vance, j. d, Familyvance, j. d, Working class whites--united states--biography, Working class whites--social conditions, Working class whites--united states--social conditions, Mountain people--social conditions, Mountain people--kentucky--social conditions, Social mobility--united states--case studies, Nf0916, Hd8073.v37 a3 2016, Non-fiction v222 2016, 305.5/62089090092 bPeople
J. D. VancePlaces
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2020, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
in English
0008410968 9780008410964
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Hillbilly, una elegía rural: Memorias de una familia y una cultura en crisis
Nov 24, 2020, Booket
mass market paperback
8423432238 9788423432233
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Hillbilly, una elegía rural: Memorias de una familia y una cultura en crisis
Nov 24, 2020, Booket
mass market paperback
8423432238 9788423432233
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Hillbilly Elegy [movie Tie-In]: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2020, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
0063045982 9780063045989
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Hillbilly-Elegie: Die Geschichte meiner Familie und einer Gesellschaft in der Krise
2018-06, Ullstein
Taschenbuch
in German
- 1. Auflage
3548377637 9783548377636
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2018, Thorndike Press
in English
1432840002 9781432840006
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2018, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
0062872257 9780062872258
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09
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
May 01, 2018, Harper Paperbacks
paperback
0062300555 9780062300553
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Jue wang zhe zhi ge: yi ge Meiguo bai ren jia zu de bei ju yu chong sheng
2017, Ba qi wen hua, Yuan zu wen hua shi ye gu fen you xian gong si, Ba Qi Wen Hua
in Chinese
- Yi ban
9869541844 9789869541848
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Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis
2017
in English
- Large print edition.
141049666X 9781410496669
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Hillbilly, una elegía rural: Memorias de una familia y una cultura en crisis
Apr 04, 2017, Deusto
paperback
8423427234 9788423427239
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2017, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
in English
0008220565 9780008220563
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2016, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
in English
0008220557 9780008220556
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
June 28, 2016, Harper, Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Hardcover
in English
0062300547 9780062300546
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Jun 28, 2016, HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio, Harpercollins
mp3 cd
1504734343 9781504734349
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2016, HarperCollins Publishers
in English
0062300563 9780062300560
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Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis
2016, Harpercollins, HarperCollins Publishers and Blackstone Audio
sound recording :
in English
- Unabridged.
1504734335 9781504734332
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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
2016, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
in English
0008219753 9780008219758
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Book Details
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From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, this book is 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.
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