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“Class Cluelessness” MONTAGE the resentment of ru- “Class Cluelessness” ral voters toward the White Working Class: “liberal elite” in The Overcoming Class The powerful resentments shaping American politics today Politics of Resentment: Cluelessness in America, Rural Consciousness in by Joan C. Williams by andrea louise campbell Wisconsin and the Rise (Harvard Business of Scott Walker (2016). Review Press, $22.99) J.D. Vance described onald J. trump’s victory in elites? Or does the logic of the Electoral Col- his own family’s predilections in Hillbilly the 2016 presidential election lege require a cross-racial, geographically di- Elegy (2016) and sociologist Arlie Russell spawned a maelstrom of finger- verse coalition of the non-elite centered on Hochschild reported that right-leaning folks D pointing and soul-searching with- economic issues? The analyses and recom- in Louisiana bayou country felt they were in the Democratic Party. How could the party mendations intended to prevent another 2016 Strangers in Their Own Land. Economist Robert of FDR, LBJ, and, for that matter, Bill Clinton, for the Democrats are just beginning. J. Gordon ’62 revealed why they might be so have lost touch so thoroughly with the white Pre-election warnings weren’t lacking. upset in The Rise and Fall of American Growth (re- working class that had been central to its co- A host of books detailed the growing dis- viewed in the May-June 2016 issue, page 68). alition for years? Which way should the party contents of lower-income white workers. If Democratic Party elites (and Hillary go in its identity and future strategy? Should Harvard political scientists Vanessa Wil- Clinton’s campaign officials) missed the it veer left, in the Bernie Sanders direction, liamson and Theda Skocpol wrote of the warning signs, Joan C. Williams, J.D. ’80, of or stay centrist? Should it continue to piece frustration of Tea Party members in The Tea the University of California’s Hastings Col- together an electoral coalition of racial and Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism lege of the Law, offers an early post-election ethnic minorities, single women, and coastal (2012), while Katherine J. Cramer uncovered analysis in White Working Class. Expanding Heading West? Because It Is So ate account, by a former federal prosecu- Beautiful, by Robert Leonard Reid tor, now law professor, of the harsh reality Off the Shelf ’65 (Counterpoint, $26), collects es- that “There has never, not for one minute Recent books with Harvard connections says from decades of infatuated wan- in American history, been peace between dering from Santa Fe through the black people and the police.” Yukon. For context, pack Cattle For some serious beach reading: Maile Kingdom: The Hidden History The Magic of Children’s Gardens: In- Meloy ’94 returns to writing fiction for of the Cowboy West (Houghton Mifflin spiring through Creative Design, by adults with Do Not Become Alarmed Harcourt, $29), by Christopher Knowlton Lolly Tai, M.L.A. ’79 (Temple University (Riverhead Books, $27.00). Rapid and ab- ’78. His account of the capacious open- Press, $75). A copiously illustrated survey sorbing, if sometimes schematic, it follows range era explains developments like the of enchantments that can be made real— a family cruise vacation gone wrong, and shaping of Teddy Roosevelt, and the near through commitment and savvy design— charts the waters of misfortune and privi- annihilation of the bison herd. in public parks. The author is professor of lege. Pair with the aloofly lyrical debut of landscape architecture at Temple. Jesse Ruddock ’04, Shot-Blue (Coach The Color of Law: A Forgotten His- House Books, $19.95), about a single moth- tory of How Our Government Seg- The Idea of the Muslim World: An In- BY er and her son squatting in a cabin by a re- regated America, by Richard Rothstein tellectual History, by Cemil Aydin, Ph.D. mote Canadian lake. ’63 (Liveright, $27.95), is a searching exam- ’02 (Harvard, $29.95). An associate profes- ination of the de jure seg- sor of history at the University of North regation of American cities. Carolina at Chapel Hill deconstructs the Geyser University Professor prevalent misunderstanding that the world’s William Julius Wilson calls it 1.5 billion Muslims are a homogeneous “the most forceful argument community, or religious or political entity— ever published” on the legal a fiction arising from the fact that Muslims creation of neighborhood are not Christians. Useful reading for poli- segregation. Chokehold: cymakers and the public alike. Policing Black Men, by Paul Butler, J.D. ’86 (New Paolo Veronese and the Practice of Press, $26.95), is a passion- Painting in Late Renaissance Venice, by Diana Gisolfi ’62 (Yale, $75). A compre- THE MAGIC OF CHILDREN’S GARDENS: INSPIRING THROUGH DESIGN, CREATIVE Children’s grotto cave at hensive examination of the sixteenth-cen- the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, tury painter, whose lush work for the Vene- Austin, Texas tian elite may be to your taste or not—but FROM IMAGES USED TAI. PERMISSION BY LOLLY OF TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS. TEMPLE BY © 2017 UNIVERSITY. 60 July - August 2017 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 MONTAGE upon her much-read November 2016 Harvard an additional 6 percent who have higher are. Don’t they understand that manufactur- Business Review article, Williams serves as incomes but no college degree. We might ing jobs aren’t coming back? Why won’t they tour guide and translator in explaining the term such folks the middle class, but since take the pink-collar jobs that are growing? worldviews, anxieties, and political choic- Americans try to elide class differences by Why do they refuse to get the training they es of economically precarious white voters. calling everyone “middle class,” she settles need to better their lot—and why don’t they Although cynicism comes easily about yet on calling this middle 53 percent “the work- send their kids to college? Why do they cling another member of the coastal elite class- ing class.” Below the working class on the to their guns and their religion? Above all, splaining for the rest of us, the book is full income spectrum are “the poor” and above why do such people vote Republican and vote of pithy observations and plausible theories. are “the professional-managerial elite,” who Trump? Don’t they want health insurance and Her basic message is that white liberal elites in addition to having incomes in the top 20 a higher minimum wage? And how dare they and the progressive lawmakers who repre- percent also have at least one college gradu- criticize the poor when so many of them are sent them have abandoned the white work- ate per household. This “PME” group has a on government disability or unemployment. ing class, scorning their lifestyles and beliefs median income of $173,000. Williams spends most of this short, tren- while failing to offer policy solutions that chant book explaining the worldview of the would truly help them. No surprise then Williams asserts that the professional- working class: why they believe and behave when that group returns the favor by aban- managerial elite have a bad case of “class clue- as they do. And her message for the pro- doning Democrats in the electoral arena. lessness.” We (if you’re reading this review, fessional-managerial class is blunt: just as Williams defines the working class as you’re probably in the PME) think the work- elites ascribe structural reasons for poverty, Americans with incomes above the bot- ing class consists of racist, sexist, homopho- so too should they recognize the structural tom one-third and below the top one-fifth bic, and anti-immigrant “deplorables.” We factors behind the attitudes and behaviors ($41,000 to $132,000 in 2015, with median can’t understand why all those people in fly- of the working class. income around $75,000). She also includes over country refuse to move where the jobs She walks through the sources of finan- the scale and technique are astonishing. By after she attends law school, when he a professor of art and design at the Pratt is in jail for murder. Institute. The Ruler’s Guide, by Chinghua Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Tang, M.B.A. ’85 (Scribner, $22). The Race, and Computing (updated edition), wisdom of the great Chinese emperor by Jane Margolis, Ed.D. ’90, and colleagues Tang Taizong, made accessible for lead- (MIT, $25 paper). A close study of Los An- ers today. At a time of fraught relations geles schools documents the “virtual seg- between the People’s Republic and the regation” that discourages African-Ameri- United States, 1,300 years later, per- can and Latino students from progressing haps one might make fresh use of the in computer science. The author’s work ancient leader and archer’s discovery, was covered in “Computing in the Class- upon learning that he had been using room,” this magazine’s March-April 2015 flawed bows: “I really don’t know their cover story. secret. I must know even less about governing a country.” SUPERINTENDENT OF ARTISTIC AND ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF VENICE Let Us Watch Richard Wilbur, by Rob- Detail from The Banishment of Vashti, 1556, ert Bagg, G ’60, and Mary Bagg (University A Description of the New York Cen- by Paolo Veronese. of Massachusetts, $32.95 paper). A “bio- tral Park, by Clarence C. Cook, A.B. 1849 graphical study” of the poet, A.M. ’47, JF ’50, (New York University, $25). A new facsimile day. About greater delegation of powers to who was the subject of “Poetic Patriarch” edition, with introduction by Maureen Meis- the executive, he notes, “Unlimited, take- (November-December 2008, page 36).
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