3.5
Fear of Falling
ByPublisher Description
A brilliant and insightful exploration of the rise and fall of the American middle class by New York Times bestselling author, Barbara Ehrenreich.
One of Barbara Ehrenreich's most classic and prophetic works, Fear of Falling closely examines the insecurities of the American middle class in an attempt to explain its turn to the right during the last two decades of the 20th century.
Weaving finely-tuned expert analysis with her trademark voice, Ehrenreich traces the myths about the middle class to their roots, determines what led to the shrinking of what was once a healthy percentage of the population, and how, in its ambition and anxiety, that population has retreated from responsible leadership.
Newly reissued and timely as ever, Fear of Falling places the middle class of yesterday under the microscope and reveals exactly how we arrived at the middle class of today.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesFear of Falling Reviews
3.5
“Notes:
I listened to Fear of Falling on audio, and I think that format did the book no favors. The argument felt hard to track, which may be partly structural—but the audio experience amplified the problem.
The book tries to cover too much. Rather than advancing a clear, cohesive thesis, it reads as a wandering exploration of the professional middle class. In an apparent effort to be even-handed and acknowledge counterarguments, the author jumps constantly across decades and data points. One moment we’re grounded in statistics from 1989, then abruptly pulled back to 1970, then forward again, then sideways into the early 1980s. The constant temporal hopping makes it difficult to understand what claim is actually being defended and why.
This lack of focus gives the book a meandering quality. It feels less like an argument being built and more like a catalog of observations, none of which are allowed to fully settle before we’re redirected elsewhere. Instead of strengthening the case, the attempt at balance ultimately weakens it.
That said, there were moments of genuine interest. The most compelling section examined the ideological and class biases of economists and sociologists—particularly those shaping dominant narratives in the 1950s and 1960s. That discussion alone made me question how much of what we “know” about class mobility and economic structure is built on assumptions rather than neutral analysis.
Another strong insight was the idea that the middle class is, in some sense, cannibalistic toward its own youth. In trying to preserve barriers against upward movement from the working class, the professional middle class has imposed those same costs on its children: extended and expensive education, years of low-status apprenticeship, and prolonged submission as underlings to the corporate elite. That tension—self-preservation at the expense of the next generation—felt both sharp and underdeveloped, a theme that deserved far more attention than it received.
Ultimately, though, these moments weren’t enough to carry the book. The lack of a clear through-line, combined with its restless structure, left me unconvinced and unsatisfied.
All in all, I wouldn’t recommend it”
“Placeholder for fear of falling by Kenadee Bryant”
About Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022) was a bestselling author and political activist, whose more than a dozen books include Natural Causes, Living with a Wild God, the award winning essay collection Had I Known, and Nickel and Dimed, which the New York Times described as “a classic in social justice literature.” An award-winning journalist, she frequently contributed to Harper's, The Nation, The New York Times, and TIME magazine. Ehrenreich was born in Butte, Montana, when it was still a bustling mining town. She studied physics at Reed College and earned a Ph.D. in cell biology from Rockefeller University. Rather than going into laboratory work, she got involved in activism, and soon devoted herself to writing her innovative journalism.
Other books by Barbara Ehrenreich
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