Class Lives

This anthology of narratives dramatizing the lived experience of class in America includes forty original essays from authors who represent a range of classes, genders, races, ethnicities, ages, and occupations across the United States. Together, these essays form a powerful narrative about the experience of class.

Chuck Collins is a board member at Class Action and a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the author most recently of 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It. Jennifer Ladd is cofounder of Class Action. Maynard Seider, author of A Year in the Life of a Factory, has retired as a Professor of Sociology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. The late Felice Yeskel was cofounder of Class Action.

It does a good job of highlighting the implicit class biases and prejudices that often infect progressive movements and institutionslimiting their popular appeal and undercutting their stated commitment to inclusion and diversity. The book's compassionate and inclusive ethos, and its detailed consideration of complex ways that class inflects the whole spectrum of identity and everyday experience, offers a welcome respite from the sanctimonious hothouse of much contemporary liberal identity politics.

Kim Bobo, Executive Director, Interfaith Worker Justice:

Too often, 'class' is viewed as a concept without meaning or impact. Class Lives demonstrates through powerful stories how we are all impacted by the challenges (for the poor) and opportunities (for the rich) imposed on us by class. Pushing against class barriers is critical for those who care about justice and fairness. This book will help us all.

Jack Metzgar, Roosevelt University, author of Striking Steel: Solidarity Remembered:

The stories in Class Lives all engage the reader at a directly personal level that both stimulates and guides self-reflection on the role of class and the awareness of class in one's own life. The overall class framework—poor, working class, middle class, and owning class—is intuitively compelling in itself, and the individual essays bring that framework to life in a way that is even more compelling and memorable.

James M. Jasper, author of Protest: A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements:

In a sad world where our class origins matter more and more, it is useful to have these candid stories about exactly how they matter, from thoughtful people who have devoted their lives to combating injustice.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of "They're Bankrupting Us"—and Twenty Other Myths about Unions:

Class Lives addresses the forbidden subject on the U.S. landscape: class. But it does so through the narratives of a spectrum of writers who examine—indeed, interrogate—their own experiences in order to make sense of their backgrounds, their challenges, their successes, and their worldviews. This deeply personal collection takes issues of class and class struggle off the shelf of both academia and social struggle and situates them in the context of living the real contradictions of the real USA. I was drawn into this volume from the very opening pages.

Rinku Sen, President of Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation and Publisher of Colorlines:

Among the many things that shape our movements, the class identities of principal players are among the least examined. In this insightful book, dozens of authors share heartfelt stories of their struggles with and consciousness around class. Class Lives takes class from a social taboo and brings it to life.