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    Summary and Analysis of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: Based on the Book by J.D. Vance
    Summary and Analysis of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: Based on the Book by J.D. Vance
    Summary and Analysis of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: Based on the Book by J.D. Vance
    Ebook46 pages44 minutes

    Summary and Analysis of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: Based on the Book by J.D. Vance

    By Worth Books

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    About this ebook

    So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Hillbilly Elegy tells you what you need to know—before or after you read J.D. Vance’s book.
     
    Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader.
     
    This short summary and analysis of Hillbilly Elegy includes:
    • Historical context
    • Chapter-by-chapter overviews
    • Character profiles
    • Important quotes
    • Fascinating trivia
    • Glossary of terms
    • Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work 
    About Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance:
     
    Hillbilly Elegy is both an honest, heartbreaking memoir about what it’s really like to grow up in poverty and strife and a searing, thought-provoking take on the growing class divide in America. Hillbilly Elegy touches on how, as a country, we got here—and what, must be done to reverse the damage.
     
    As Ivy League–educated lawyer and Sillicon Valley principal J.D. Vance looks back on his childhood in Jackson, Kentucky, and Ohio, he recalls a youth marred by violence, poverty, and substance abuse, but also one of deep love and family loyalty. He tackles difficult questions about social class, upward mobility, and what it means to feel disenfranchised in your own country.
     
    His highly personal account guides readers to an understanding of rural conservatives, and how an entire segment of people transformed from New Deal democrats to right-wing Republicans.
     
    The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMar 28, 2017
    ISBN9781504044868
    Summary and Analysis of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: Based on the Book by J.D. Vance
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      Book preview

      Summary and Analysis of Hillbilly Elegy - Worth Books

      Contents

      Context

      Overview

      Summary

      Cast of Characters

      Direct Quotes and Analysis

      Trivia

      What’s That Word?

      Critical Response

      About the Author

      For Your Information

      Bibliography

      Copyright

      Context

      Hillbilly Elegy is written as a response to J.D. Vance’s own experiences and observations growing up in Appalachia, where working-class whites are mired in poverty and the difficulties it brings with it—from drug addiction and young, single motherhood to violence and incarceration. Vance examines the myriad reasons for the plight of his people, from the perspective of one who has risen above his social and economic class to become a conservative, Yale-educated lawyer. But more than a story of the ups and downs of a life in poverty, it is an analysis of why the hillbilly culture fails to prosper, and how both political parties are failing the people of the Rust Belt. As such, it is an extremely timely work—one that looks closely at why, perhaps, this group has embraced Donald Trump, and why our country is divided along class lines more staunchly than ever before. It provides criticism of the political system and of his people themselves, and offers potential solutions for narrowing the class divide. In American Conservative, Rod Dreher wrote, "Hillbilly Elegy does for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book [Between the World and Me] did for poor black people: give them voice and presence in the public square." In fact, Vance often argues that hillbillies have more in common with the blacks of the urban ghettos than with other white people. Hillbilly Elegy has been received by both the left and the right as an important, must-read account for anyone trying to understand—and activate positive change—in the current landscape of our nation. However, the book also has its critics, from both sides—some who see Vance as a Trump explainer who downplays the rampant racism and sexism in his culture, others from his own culture who believe he unfairly portrays them as lazy welfare abusers, ultimately responsible for their own desperation.

      Overview

      Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating—and, at times, deeply disturbing—memoir by a successful, Ivy-league lawyer who grew up a hillbilly (a member of the white working-class poor) in Jackson, Kentucky, and Middletown, Ohio. As Vance looks back on both the trauma of a childhood marred by violence, poverty, and substance abuse, while also depicting deep love and loyalty towards his family (particularly his grandparents), he takes on difficult questions about class and upward mobility, and what it means to feel disenfranchised in your own country. Tracing the huge migration of hill people from Appalachia to the Midwest in the 1950s—when big companies sought workers and provided otherwise luckless

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