Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right

In her first book since the widely acclaimed Strangers in Their Own Land, National Book Award finalist and bestselling author Arlie Russell Hochschild now ventures to Appalachia, uncovering the "pride paradox" that has given the right's appeals such resonance.

For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"?

Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation, where the city was reeling: coal jobs had left, crushing poverty persisted, and a deadly drug crisis struck the region. Although Pikeville was in the political center thirty years ago, by 2016, 80 percent of the district's population voted for Donald Trump. Her brilliant exploration of the town's response to a white nationalist march in 2017 -- a rehearsal for the deadly Unite the Right march that would soon take place in Charlottesville, Virginia -- takes us deep inside a torn and suffering community.

Hochschild focuses on a group swept up in the shifting political landscape: blue-collar men. In small churches, hillside hollers, roadside diners, trailer parks, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Hochschild introduces us to unforgettable people, and offers an original lens through which to see them and the wider world. In Stolen Pride, Hochschild incisively explores our dangerous times, even as she also points a way forward.

"A piercing . . . impressive and nuanced assessment of a critical factor in American politics." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Author: Arlie Russell Hochschild
Publisher: New Press
Published: 09/10/2024
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 1.60d
ISBN: 9781620976463


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/24/2024
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2024

About the Author

Arlie Russell Hochschild is the author of many groundbreaking books, including The Second Shift, The Managed Heart, and The Time Bind as well as Strangers in Their Own Land, which became an instant bestseller and was a finalist for a National Book Award, and Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right (both from The New Press). Hochschild is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, the writer Adam Hochschild.