The Big Sort
Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart
1st Edition
Published on 11. May 2009
384 pages
978-0-547-52519-8 (ISBN)
Description
The award-winning journalist reveals the untold story of why America is so culturally and politically divided in this groundbreaking book.
Armed with startling demographic data, Bill Bishop demonstrates how Americans have spent decades sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities-not by region or by state, but by city and neighborhood. With ever-increasing specificity, we choose the communities and media that are compatible with our lifestyles and beliefs. The result is a country that has become so ideologically inbred that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away.
In The Big Sort, Bishop explores how this phenomenon came to be, and its dire implications for our country. He begins with stories about how we live today and then draws on history, economics, and our changing political landscape to create one of the most compelling big-picture accounts of America in recent memory.
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05/2009
Houghton Mifflin
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Person
BILL BISHOP was a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman when he began research on city growth and political polarization with the sociologist and statistician Robert Cushing. Bishop has worked as a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, and, with his wife, owned and operated the Bastrop County Times, a weekly newspaper in Smithville, Texas. He lives in Austin.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Maps
- Introduction
- The Power of Place
- The Age of Political Segregation
- The Politics of Migration
- The Psychology of the Tribe
- The Silent Revolution
- Culture Shift
- The Beginning of Division
- The Economics of the Big Sort
- The Way We Live Today
- Religion
- Advertising
- Lifestyle
- The Politics of People Like Us
- Choosing a Side
- The Big Sort Campaign
- To Marry Your Enemies
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- About the Authors
- Connect with HMH
- Footnotes
