Barbara Ehrenreich Revealed the Grim Side of Prosperity
Barbara Ehrenreich told us about “essential workers” before it was cool.
In more than 20 books and numerous articles and essays, she earned a reputation as a self-described “myth buster,” although her titles sometimes sounded more like a buzz-killer.
In 1989′s “Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class,” she examined the middle-class insecurities that led voters to turn to the political right in the century’s final decades.
In 2005′s “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream,” she explored white-collar unemployment through the eyes of those who were falling behind while trying to get ahead.
In her 2009 book “Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America,” she took on the idea that everyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps without falling on their face.
Yet, she tried mightily to maintain a wry sense of humor in her tough-minded commentary. “After all, I wrote a book about joy,” she once insisted. “I’m not a sourpuss.”
Indeed, in stark contrast to her earlier “Blood Rites,” about the roots of humanity’s attraction to war, she lightened up with a stunningly optimistic work, “Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy,” about our relentless pursuit of communal happiness.
But Ehrenreich, who died Thursday at age 81 in an Alexandria, Virginia, hospice center after a recent stroke, undoubtedly is best known for 2001′s “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.”
It is a book that grew out of a conversation and had a profound impact on the national conversation.
As her New York Times obituary recounts, the book grew out of a conversation she was having over lunch with Lewis Lapham, then editor of Harper’s Magazine, about socioeconomic class.
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