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Cover of Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance

Hillbilly Elegy

  • 272 pages · about 5 hours
  • First published 2016
  • 28 editions

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1 About this book

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, this book is a probing look at the struggles of America's white working class through the author's own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town. Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of poor, white Americans.

The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside.

  • Economic conditions
  • Biography
  • Sociology
  • Social science
  • Economic history
  • Whites, history
  • Family life
  • Social conditions

2 About J. D. Vance

Born 1984

James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman; August 2, 1984) is an American politician, author, venture capitalist, and Marine Corps veteran serving as the 50th vice president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party, he represented the state of Ohio in the United States Senate from 2023 to 2025. Vance was born and raised in Middletown, Ohio, and grew up in an unstable, low-income family.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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