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Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 Hardcover – January 31, 2012

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Charles Murray (Author)
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4.1 out of 5 stars 435 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Crown Forum; First Edition edition (January 31, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307453421
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307453426
  • Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (435 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsMurray's valedictory ends on a note of optimism. But the book doesn't support optimism.
By Graham H. Seibert TOP 1000 REVIEWER on February 3, 2012
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
The last chapter, entitled "Alternative Futures," sounds a note of optimism. All that we need is for America's elites to recognize the problem, come to their senses, and set things straight. Right. As if Murray has not been futilely expounding this message for the past 40 years. He cites Robert Fogel's "The Fourth Great Awakening" as an inspiration for his optimism. America has overcome crises of the spirit in the past, after we lost first the Puritan spirituality, then the secular sense of mission which fueled our independence, then the crisis of the depression which was answered by the New Deal and the welfare state. Fogel argues that today's crisis is a want of meaning in our lives. Murray believes we can reestablish it.

Murray says that there are only about four fundamental personal characteristics undergirding a happy life. The ones he names are two character traits: honesty and industry, and two societal connections: meaningful relationships with one's fellow man, and a satisfying marriage. He provides another, overlapping list of four elements that have historically defined American society which he calls the four founding virtues: industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religiosity. He goes into some length presenting sociological surveys that demonstrate the importance and the interconnectedness of these characteristics to personal happiness, and their importance to the well-being of society. If only we could recover them, all would be well.

The backbone of his book is a comparison between two hypothetically constructed communities, Fishtown and Belmont. They are based on real places, predominantly white neighborhoods of Philadelphia and Boston respectively, with incomes at the 8th and 97th national percentiles.Read more ›
226 Comments 932 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsChallenging argument on a critical theme
By Publius on January 31, 2012
Format: Hardcover
Charles Murray has never been one to shy away from a volatile subject. As a result, he has been able to make startling arguments on topics that are rather taboo in the modern intellectual climate. With the Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book), he argued that intelligence, which is partly innate, is more important to social success than socioeconomic status. In Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, he ranks the cultural value of different civilizations and assesses the west as by far the greatest. It's clear from his work that Murray does not suffer from delusion--he is no quack. And the content of his arguments is engaging for anyone who is open-minded and willing to consider arguments from new perspectives.

Here, Murray explains that white America has grown increasingly divided along class lines. There is a clear moral case being made here. The lower class is falling into illegitimacy, crime, and poverty while the upper class is excelling in education, career, and family. The main cause is simple: primarily, a devaluation of white middle class values brought on by increased intervention by the government. This intervention takes the form of welfare support, in which the government gives incentive for people to break apart families and avoid work. Meanwhile, the upper class is left alone to prosper in its highly technical fields.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsA Valuable Analysis of a Widening Social Chasm
By Steve T on February 2, 2012
Format: Hardcover
"Coming Apart" offers a very effective analysis of the diverging economic prospects and social values of American society since 1963. I should say first off that many people seem biased against this book because of the controversy surrounding Murray's prior book, "The Bell Curve." Murray has taken great pains in this new book to avoid the issue of race, focusing specifically on white Americans. I could find nothing offensive or even politically incorrect regarding race in this book.

The author's main premise is that over the past 4+ decades, America has divided strongly into two classes, that he illustrates with fictional town names. "Belmont" refers to the cognitive elite: The top 20% with college or graduate degrees, who hold jobs in knowledge-based occupations. And "Fishtown" refers to the working class: The bottom 30% with at most a high school diploma and (if employed) working in blue collar or low wage service jobs. Murray demonstrates quite effectively (using statistics) that the people who make up "Belmont" have become more industrious and more traditional in their attitudes toward marriage, family and community, while the people in "Fishtown" are living in communities that are basically falling apart and where traditional nuclear families are becoming harder and harder to find.

While the book bases its arguments on solid statistics, I have two primary complaints. First, it does not always do a good job of distinguishing cause and effect. For example, the author points out the working class men now choose to engage in much more "leisure" and less work. He then conjures up a vision of a typical male, who all bent out of shape because he doesn't have the opportunity has grandfather had at the GM factory, turns down a $12 per hour job driving a delivery truck.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent!!

Book was exactly as described, securely packaged and arrived promptly. Excellent!!!

Published 7 days ago by S. L. Langer
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

A very detailed and revealing book.

Published 8 days ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat book!

Great read ! I would highly recommend to anyone interested. I've given it to my dad and some of my professors to read as well!

Published 9 days ago by Danny L.
5.0 out of 5 starsand it isn't pretty. Accurate perhaps

A sequel to "Losing Ground", Murray illuminates the social trends subsequent to 1980, and it isn't pretty. Read more

Published 17 days ago by Robert
5.0 out of 5 starsAnother "must-read" by Charles Murray

Charles Murray wisely, in my opinion, restricted his investigations to white America, thereby preventing his (many) left-wing detractors from characterizing his conclusions and... Read more

Published 21 days ago by Henry K Stanford
4.0 out of 5 starsOverall a worthwhile read

At first I thought I had purchased a sociology thesis as the author seemed to over support his case with statistics. Read more

Published 24 days ago by Chuck Warnock
5.0 out of 5 starsClass Action

Provocative. A different perspective on America's problems.

Published 24 days ago by Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 starsThe country's loss of values

This book is an eye-opener. Murray is an even-handed researcher and author who provides the reader with some great insights into where this country appears to be moving, and why we... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Howard Giordano
5.0 out of 5 starsEvery American should read this book

Charles murray set the stage for welfare reform with his extraordinary book, Losing Ground. Now he has set the stage for a revival of American civic culture and American... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Newt Gingrich
5.0 out of 5 starsVery thorough

One of the best researched and well organized books I have read in quite a while. The information included can be quite sobering, but the impact needs to be understood and... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Dan Ryan

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