In this timely book William Ryan, author of Blaming the Victim, analyzes how and why the "vulnerable majority" of Americans, though "created equal," lives under the permanent and shaming threat of inequality. While noting that we formally exalt equality in such documents as the Declaration of Independence and even in everyday expressions about fair play, equal opportunity, and the common good, Ryan graphically shows how we nevertheless "play the game" in various spheres of public life by rules that divide people into winners and losers, superior and inferior rules that, in short, institutionalize inequality. A critique of this inhospitable system of beliefs, Equality also suggests that the foundations of true equality are not alien to the American tradition.
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"An imaginative and provocative account of inequality in American society... Ryan is particularly effective in communicating abstract or statistically laden ideas in easily understandable, even entertaining prose, thus making the book accessible to a large general audience." -- Choice
"Remarkably persuasive...In this energetic, anecdotal analysis, Ryan exposes as myths such cherished principles as upward mobility, fair play, merit, and achievement, and he shows how our adherence to the doctrine of individual advancement denies us access to a genuine fair share of the social pie."
-- Boston Sunday Globe
"Remarkably persuasive...In this energetic, anecdotal analysis, Ryan exposes as myths such cherished principles as upward mobility, fair play, merit, and achievement, and he shows how our adherence to the doctrine of individual advancement denies us access to a genuine fair share of the social pie."
-- Boston Sunday Globe
From the Inside Flap
In this timely book William Ryan, author of Blaming the Victim, analyzes how and why the "vulnerable majority" of Americans, though "created equal," lives under the permanent and shaming threat of inequality. While noting that we formally exalt equality in such documents as the Declaration of Independence and even in everyday expressions about fair play, equal opportunity, and the common good, Ryan graphically shows how we nevertheless "play the game" in various spheres of public life by rules that divide people into winners and losers, superior and inferior rules that, in short, institutionalize inequality. A critique of this inhospitable system of beliefs, Equality also suggests that the foundations of true equality are not alien to the American tradition.
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