We lost a great cultural critic and writer last week. I have benefited immensely over the years from Barbara Ehrenreich's work on social class in America. She is well-known for her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, but my favorite of her twenty-one books has always been her 1989 offering Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class. When I learned about her recent passing I pulled my copy of Fear of Falling off the shelf in the hopes of … [Read more...] about Chris Lehmann remembers Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich
“As the boomers have aged, denial of death…has moved to the center of American culture”
Check out Yale historian Gabriel Winant's review of Barbara Ehrenreich's new book: Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Our Illusion of Self Control. Here is a taste: Ehrenreich contemplates with some satisfaction not just the approach of her own death but also the passing of her generation. As the boomers have aged, denial of death, she argues, has moved to the center of American culture, and a vast industrial ecosystem has bloomed to … [Read more...] about “As the boomers have aged, denial of death…has moved to the center of American culture”