LOSING OUR WAY: Bob Herbert Book Digs Into America's Soul, Calls for Action
December 29, 2014
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In his eighteen years as an opinion columnist for The New York Times, Herbert championed the working poor and the middle class.
Hardly anybody wants to read about how bad it is in America.
I was tempted to pass over the reviews of Bob Herbert's new book, but I finally realized: to do nothing is the worst mistake.
So here it is, a summary of what may be the most important book of the era of rich vs. poor, powerful vs. weak, etc., etc. You all know the routine.
The nation's soul is shot full of holes, and few of us have the guts to even confront the reality.
Michigan, where the abolitionist movement grew to a juggernaut of men willing to die to do right, is again at the center of the whirlwind.
*Detroit struggles to emerge again as a thriving center of Midwest economic growth.
*In places like Hudson, Michigan, radicals use religion as an excuse for intolerance and violence.
*In every burg and crossroads ordinary people face unimaginable challenges just to keep body and soul together.
Here is the summary of the book followed by the most outstanding reviews:
"In his eighteen years as an opinion columnist for The New York Times, Herbert championed the working poor and the middle class. After filing his last column in 2011, he set off on a journey across the country to report on Americans who were being left behind in an economy that has never fully recovered from the Great Recession. The portraits of those he encountered fuel his new book, Losing Our Way. Herbert's combination of heartrending reporting and keen political analysis is the purest expression since the Occupy movement of the plight of the 99 percent.
The individuals and families who are paying the price of America's bad choices in recent decades form the book's emotional center: an exhausted high school student in Brooklyn who works the overnight shift in a factory at minimum wage to help pay her family's rent; a twenty-four-year-old soldier from Peachtree City, Georgia, who loses both legs in a misguided, mismanaged, seemingly endless war; a young woman, only recently engaged, who suffers devastating injuries in a tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis; and a group of parents in Pittsburgh who courageously fight back against the politicians who decimated funding for their children's schools.
Herbert reminds us of a time in America when unemployment was low, wages and profits were high, and the nation's wealth, by current standards, was distributed much more equitably. Today, the gap between the wealthy and everyone else has widened dramatically, the nation's physical plant is crumbling, and the inability to find decent work is a plague on a generation.
Herbert traces where we went wrong and spotlights the drastic and dangerous shift of political power from ordinary Americans to the corporate and financial elite. Hope for America, he argues, lies in a concerted push to redress that political imbalance. Searing and unforgettable, Losing Our Way ultimately inspires with its faith in ordinary citizens to take back their true political power and reclaim the American dream.
"Herbert ardently defends those being left behind in this current 'winner-take-all' economy. As he travels across the U.S. interviewing the jobless and wounded, as well as noted educators, economists, activists and political leaders ... what emerges from his chronicle is a devastating portrait.... Herbert ends by urging bold new leadership against an 'intolerable status quo' and pointing to encouraging examples of citizen groups rising up across the country."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review
"In vivid anecdotes and moving portraits, Herbert humanizes the many problems he uncovers, and he clearly believes that Americans can, and will, band together to set the nation on a new course."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Asked by a World War II veteran, 'What happened to us?', Bob Herbert does what he has done all through his remarkable career as a journalist: he sets out to find the answers from the ground up. Searching out the stories and experiences of everyday Americans, and digging deep into facts and figures from 'the high noon of capitalism' to the widening gulf of our present vast inequalities, he takes us to the heart and core of our troubles while holding firmly to the conviction of his lifetime: that the truth shall set us free. Here is America as revealed by a great reporter whose empathy with everyday people inspires trust on their part, honesty on his, and discovery for all who make the journey with him."
--Bill Moyers
"In a series of haunting portraits, Losing Our Way is an unforgettable reminder of the struggles facing America's middle class today. Herbert has given us a sweeping picture of what has gone wrong in America -- how we have under-invested in infrastructure, let corporate policies dominate the education debate, and fought needless wars that resulted in a tragic waste of life. A brilliant and devastating portrayal that explains how our priorities and policies have gone awry, Losing Our Way will make you angry and determined to put our country back on course.
--Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics and author of Globalization and Its Discontents and The Price of Inequality
"Losing Our Way is a compelling account of the problems facing our country told in a riveting fashion through the eyes of people dealing with the consequences. I couldn't put it down. It should be a mandatory read for every member of Congress and anyone who aspires to be president."
--Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania, 2003-2011
"Bob Herbert has written a terrific and important book about America. It is an incisive examination of our nation's tragic unwillingness to address the overwhelming problems we face. We can't go forward unless we face reality. Herbert has the courage to do that."
--U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
The essence of being a good reporter, in my opinion, is not only to point out what is wrong, but to suggest ways it can be righted. Herbert does both very, very well in this book.
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