The Resistible Rise of the American Right

What's The Matter With America?

One of America's most insightful social observers cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans

THOMAS FRANK, NOT MICHAEL MOORE, IS THE MOST INCISIVE WRITER ON CONTEMPORARY AMERICA                                                        His writing is so dazzling and witty and scornful it can stand comparison with the works of Twain or Mencken ... Frank is in a different league from Michael Moore. He is a smarter and better writer.

'Important and fascinating...Frank [writes] vividly and with great insight'

'Thomas Frank is the most witty, talented, humane and intelligent writer in America today. Ignoring this book is not an option'

Founding editor of The Baffler, Thomas Frank is the author of One Market Under God and The Conquest of Cool. A contributor to Harper's, The Nation, and The New York Times op-ed pages, he lives in Chicago.

With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on the 'thirty-year backlash' - the common man's revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. He charts the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests; between workers and bosses; between populists and right-wingers. 
 
Taking the state of Kansas as a paradigm, Frank describes how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union. He also seeks to answer some broader riddles: why do so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? Frank reveals the true story, showing how voters have been persuaded to elevate 'values' and down-home qualities above hard questions of policy. 
 
A brilliant analysis, and funny to boot, What's the Matter with America? presents a critical assessment of the state of America today.

Thomas Frank

No one fools Thomas Frank, who is the sharpest, funniest, most intellectually voracious political commentator on the scene. In Pity the Billionaire he has written a brilliant expose of the most breath-taking ruse in American political history: how the right turned the biggest capitalist breakdown since 1929 into an opportunity for themselves.

Tom Frank has the Tea Parties in his sights! Brisk and searing and deeply informed by the lessons of history (shocking notion!), Frank's latest guide for the perplexed is nothing less than a precious gift to us. Read it, and finally--You. Will. Understand.

The Unlikely Comeback of the American Right

Economic meltdown usually brings calls for change. Or it’s supposed to. 
 
But when Thomas Frank set out to find them in America today, all he heard were loud demands that the losers be hit harder and that the winners get more. 
 
Using first-hand reporting, a deep political understanding and a wicked sense of humour, Frank examines the weird double-think that has enlisted the powerless in a fan club for the prosperous. Pity the Billionaire takes us on a wild road-trip through the strange landscape of the American Right, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck, makes sense of a topsy-turvy world and shows how instead of complying with the new speed limit, conservative America has stamped hard on the accelerator. It is essential reading for understanding how we all got to where we are, and how we might get out.

Pity the Billionaire

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Praise for Pity the Billionaire

The thinking person's Michael Moore

Trenchant and witty

An astonishing story

The thinking person's Michael Moore

Trenchant and witty

An astonishing story

The thinking person's Michael Moore

Trenchant and witty

An astonishing story

Books by Thomas Frank

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