The Great Divide [Paperback]

Studs Terkel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1989

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Good War and Working writes a chronicle of the American Dream in trouble. Studs Terkel talks to 100 Americans, from housewives and bartenders to teachers and cops. What they have to say presents a candid portrait of a nation divided. A hardcover bestseller. HC: Pantheon.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Avon Books (Mm) (August 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038070854X
• ISBN-13: 978-0380708543
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,711,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Studs Terkel (1912-2008) was a free spirit, an outspoken populist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a terrible ham, and one of the best-loved characters on the American scene. Born in New York in 1912, he lived in Chicago for over eight decades. His radio show was carried on stations throughout the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There's a meaness in the land...., April 20, 2003

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Great Divide (Paperback)

From reading Studs Terkel's _Working_ some years ago I knew that he was a perceptive and honest writer with a ground level understanding of working-class reality. This later work,however, is even better. In fact, it is the best, the most accurate and honest, book on present day American society that I've read.

Terkel interviews a wide range of typical Americans and shows the great economic, social, racial, political, and religious differences that separate us. The primary problem seems to be the huge and growing gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" (the book makes it clear that the only thing that most Americans are really interested in is money.) He also points out the extreme historical illiteracy of the younger generations that cuts them off from their own past.

The most frightening part about the book is the almost sociopathic way in which the "haves" have of belittling the "have-nots." People with money would literally rather see poor people starve in the streets rather than see one dime of their taxes spent on "welfare." As the book points out, there's a meaness in the land that wasn't here in the thirties, and we're losing a feeling as a people.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ace Interviewer Does It Again, February 9, 2006

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Divide (Paperback)

Living life in America, it's too easy to see one's own opinion as authentic, reasonable mainstream and that of others as wild, dangerous and uninformed. Maybe that's human nature, but Americans tend to take things to extremes anyhow. Knowledge of "the facts of life" is hardly imprinted in anyone's genes. You learn these facts over a lifetime and your take on "the facts" can change overnight and dramatically. You are never more aware of the possibility of change---even in the same household---than when you read one of Studs Terkel's compilations of interviews. People from different ends of the spectrum come together, even take actions which once seemed abhorent to them. People who once shared similar views drift, or are wrenched, apart. Soldiers turn against war, ministers against the Church, housewives become activists. Other people hold onto their beliefs. In THE GREAT DIVIDE, as in "Working", "The Good War", "Division Street, America", and "Hard Times"---to name a few of his other books---Terkel presents the life stories, the views, and the complicated picture of a broad section of America. Before you spout off on what Americans think, how they feel, or what they do, it would behoove you to read this or any other of his books. When I'm tempted to make some sweeping generalization about America, I think of Studs Terkel, and keep my mouth shut. People abroad who think they've got a handle on the USA ought to check these works out too. I can't think of any other set of books that give such insight---in relatively painless form too---into American life and values. For every yuppie there's a displaced worker, for every conservative there's a radical, for everyone who knows "the answers to life's questions", there is one who keeps searching. THE GREAT DIVIDE concerns class, an aspect of America that many refuse to face, as well as the major division between those who are only out to look after No. 1, as we say, and those who feel that justice and improvement in society top individual concerns. If we take the 1960s as a time when the latter tendency loomed larger, the 1980s, when Terkel wrote this book, were certainly typified by the former.

The only caveat to THE GREAT DIVIDE is that we seldom learn the circumstances of the interviews, the phrasing of the questions, or what was edited out. This of course is true of any published interview without a full transcription. But the range of opinions and thoughtfulness would tend to convince me that although Terkel has his own views, he let others shine through. Teachers, stockbrokers, laborers, housewives, bosses, soldiers, students, blacks, whites, Hispanics, immigrants, organizers, apathetic standers-by, left, right---all kinds of people appear on these pages. The GREAT DIVIDE is an education in American values, and believe me, "American values" don't belong to any single political party.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There's a meaness in the land..., December 26, 2005

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The great divide: Second thoughts on the American dream (Hardcover)

_From reading Studs Terkel's _Working_ some years ago I knew that he was a perceptive and honest writer with a ground level understanding of working-class reality. This later work, however, is even better. In fact, it is the best, the most accurate and honest, book on present day American society that I've read.

_Terkel interviews a wide range of typical Americans and shows the great economic, social, racial, political, and religious differences that separate us. The primary problem seems to be the huge and growing gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" (the book makes it clear that the only thing that most Americans are really interested in is money.) He also points out the extreme historical illiteracy of the younger generations that cuts them off from their own past.

_The most frightening part about the book is the almost sociopathic way in which the "haves" have of belittling the "have-nots." People with money would literally rather see poor people starve in the streets rather than see one dime of their taxes spent on "welfare." As the book points out, there's a meaness in the land that wasn't here in the thirties, and we're losing a feeling as a people.