Deep inequality : understanding the new normal and how to challenge it /

Writing for students new to the study of stratification and mobility, sociologists Wysong (Indiana Univ. Kokomo) and Perrucci (Purdue) take issue not only with conservative and neoliberal policies and ideas but also with those of mainstream liberals. Their primer features clear and succinct conceptualization, references to current events, and data on economic trends. The authors interpret current grassroots social movements striving for greater racial, social, economic, and political equality on the heels of the short-lived "Occupy Wall Street uprising" as indicative of "today's inequality wars." They fear that growing inequality, even in the face of populist Trumpism, is being normalized with a narrative that excuses the immense gap between a minority doing well and a disempowered majority experiencing stagnating wages, declining status and security, and historically low chances for their children's success. As for globalization; the insecurities of a gig economy, declining unionization, robotics and a diminution of well-paying blue-collar jobs, contraction of public services, and political campaigns funded by an ultra-wealthy "superclass," the new normal says "get used to it." This descriptive, theoretically friendly examination of class structure in late capitalism offers a good introduction. Unfortunately, it falls short on "how to challenge it." Summing Up: Recommended. General, public, and undergraduate libraries. --Garth M. Massey, emeritus, University of Wyoming