Poverty, by America

   
　　美國，這個富裕且強大的國家，卻擁有超過其他先進國家的貧窮人口。為什麼？
 
　　在這部作品中，社會學家馬修‧戴斯蒙爬梳歷史、研究資料與第一手報導，呈現令人震撼的現實：富人蓄意的、或在無意之間使得貧者越貧。擁有穩定經濟狀況的人們，都是剝削了窮人的兇手之一：降低他們薪資的同時，要求他們超額負擔居住等成本；設計出的福利國家體制，反讓最不需要救濟的人，獲得最多資源。有些生命被看得很渺小、不值一提，因之，其他人(的財富)得以茁壯。
 
　　這部作品提供了關於這個急迫問題的全新視角，幫助我們思考解決方式，戴斯蒙以一貫優美的文字，犀利剖開國家富裕表象之下的醜惡現實，呼籲人人正視這一議題，朝向建立一個共同富裕、共享真正自由的社會，一同努力。(文/博客來編譯)

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a ＂provocative and compelling＂ (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Oprah Daily, Time, The Star Tribune, Vulture, The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Public Library, Esquire, California Review of Books, She Reads, Library Journal

＂Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch.＂--The New Yorker

Longlisted for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award - Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.

Matthew Desmond is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and the founding director of Princeton’s Eviction Lab. His last book, Evicted, won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, among others. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Desmond is also a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.