About this item
The New York Times Book Review - David K. Shipler [Abramsky] travels the United States meeting the poor, whose wrenching tales he inserts in tight vignettes among data-driven analyses and acute dissections of government programsAbramsky has written an ambitious book that both describes and prescribes. He reaches across a wide range of issuesincluding education, housing and criminal justicein a sweeping panorama of poverty's elements. Assembling them in one volume forces him to be superficial on occasion, but that price is worth paying to get the broad scope. In considering solutions, it's crucial to understand how the disparate problems of poor families interact in mutual reinforcementAbramsky has invited serious rethinking and issued a significant call to action.
About the Author
I was born and raised in the UK, studied politics, philosophy and economics at Balliol College, Oxford, and moved to the US in my early 20s. I have lived and worked in London, New York, and in California. My writings have been published in the Nation magazine, the New Yorker online, the New York Times, Atlantic, Mother Jones, Truthout, Sacramento Magazine, Slate, Salon, and many other publications in the US. In the UK I have written for a number of publications, including the Guardian, the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph, and the New Statesman.Over the past twenty years, I have focused mainly on social justice themes, though have also written book reviews, travel essays, articles on sports and on music, and other areas of life that pique my interest. In addition to the articles that I write, I am also the author of nine books, ranging from books on criminal justice to a memoir about my grandparents, through to my most recent book, a biography of the sportswoman Lottie Dod, titled "Little Wonder: The Fabulous Story of Lottie Dod, the World's First Female Sports Superstar.I live in Sacramento with my wife and kids, and teach writing part-time at the University of California at Davis. When I am not writing, I am traveling -- I have visited somewhere in the region of 50 countries over the years -- playing tennis, skiing, reading, or sitting at my piano playing music.
