Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, journalist Beth Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question -- why her only son died -- and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm....

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, this book is a probing look at the struggles of America's white working class through the author's own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town. Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis -- that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency...

"Of Forest and Fields tells the story of the ethnic Mexicans that toiled in the fields, canneries, packing sheds, and forests who helped turn the Pacific Northwest into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country. The book explores the struggle of Braceros, Tejanos, and Mexican immigrants, to contest their exploitation in various ways. The history of their resistance culminated in the creation of one of the most important farm worker's...

In Dividing Paradise, Jennifer Sherman tells the story of Paradise Valley, Washington, a rural community where amenity-driven economic growth has resulted in a new social landscape of inequity and privilege, with deep fault lines between old-timers and newcomers. Based on in-depth interviews with individuals on both sides of the divide, this book explores the causes and repercussions of the polarization that has become commonplace across the United...