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Short Synopsis
America in the 'aughts—hilariously skewered, brilliantly dissected, and darkly diagnosed by the bestselling social critic hailed as "the soul mate" of Jonathan Swift.

Full Synopsis
Barbara Ehrenreich's first book of satirical commentary, The Worst Years of Our Lives, which was about the Reagan era, was received with bestselling acclaim. The one problem was the title: couldn't some prophetic fact-checker have seen that the worst years of our lives—far worse—were still to come? Here they are, the 2000s, and in This Land Is Their Land, Ehrenreich subjects them to the most biting and incisive satire of her career.

Taking the measure of what we are left with after the cruelest decade in memory, Ehrenreich finds lurid extremes all around. While members of the moneyed elite can buy congressmen, many in the working class can barely buy lunch. While a wealthy minority obsessively consumes cosmetic surgery, the poor often go without health care for their children. And while the corporate C-suites are now nests of criminality, the less fortunate are fed a diet of morality, marriage, and abstinence. Ehrenreich's antidotes are as sardonic as they are spot-on: pet insurance for your kids; Salvation Army fashions for those who can no longer afford Wal-Mart; and boundless rage against those who have given us a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.

"For those who truly do care about what America has to offer "the huddled masses...yearning to breathe free" in a post-9/11 world, This Land Is Their Land is essential [listening]. ---San Francisco Chronicle

"Provocative, angry and funny, often at the same time." ---Kirkus

"[Narrator Cassandra] Campbell's light and crisp tone is a perfect match for Ehrenreich's demeanor and textual tone." ---Publishers Weekly Audio Review

"[Ehrenreich's] passion, compassion and wit keep these excursions lively and timely." ---Publishers Weekly

This Land Is Their Land

Reports from a Divided Nation

Author Barbara Ehrenreich

Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

Publication date Jul 8, 2008

Running time 6 hrs

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