Ehrenreich, Barbara 1941- (Barbara Alexander)

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Ehrenreich, Barbara 1941- (Barbara Alexander)

PERSONAL:

Born August 26, 1941, in Butte, MT; daughter of Ben Howes (a miner) and Isabelle Oxley Alexander; married John Ehrenreich, August 6, 1966 (marriage ended); married Gary Stevenson, December 10, 1983; children: (first marriage) Rosa, Benjamin. Education: Reed College, B.A., 1963; Rockefeller University, Ph.D., 1968. Politics: "Socialist and feminist."

ADDRESSES:

Home—Key West, FL.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, advocate, essayist, public speaker, lecturer, and educator. Health Policy Advisory Center, New York, NY, staff member, 1969-71; State University of New York College at Old Westbury, assistant professor of health sciences, 1971-74; New York Institute for the Humanities, associate fellow, 1980—; Institute for Policy Studies, fellow, 1982—. Co-chair, Democratic Socialists of America, 1983—. United Professionals (an advocacy organization for middle-class professional workers), founder. Frequent guest on television and radio programs.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Magazine award, 1980; Ford Foundation award for Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Issues, 1981; Guggenheim fellowship, 1987; Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association, 1998; Christopher Award and Los Angeles Times Book Award in current interest category, both 2002, both for Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America; Puffin/Nation Prize, 2004; Sydney Hillman Award for Journalism.

WRITINGS:

(With husband, John Ehrenreich) Long March, Short Spring: The Student Uprising at Home and Abroad, Monthly Review Press (New York, NY), 1969.

(With John Ehrenreich) The American Health Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics: A Report from the Health Policy Advisory Center, Random House (New York, NY), 1970.

(With Deirdre English) Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, Feminist Press (Old Westbury, NY), 1972.

(With Deirdre English) Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness, Feminist Press (Old Westbury, NY), 1973.

(With Deirdre English) For Her Own Good: One Hundred Fifty Years of the Experts' Advice to Women, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1978, 2nd edition, Anchor Books (New York, NY), 2005.

The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1983.

(Coauthor) Poverty in the American Dream: Women & Children First, Institute for New Communications, South End Press (Boston, MA), 1983.

(With Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs) Re-making Love: The Feminization of Sex, Anchor Press/Doubleday (New York, NY), 1986.

(With Fred Block, Richard Cloward, and Frances Fox Piven) The Mean Season: An Attack on the Welfare State, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1987.

Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1989.

The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1990.

Kipper's Game (novel), Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1993.

The Snarling Citizen: Essays, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1995.

Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Holt (New York, NY), 2001, adapted as play, Dramatists Play Service (New York, NY), 2005.

(Editor, with Arlie Russell Hochschild) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author, with Annette Fuentes, of the pamphlet Women in the Global Factory (pamphlet), South End Press (Boston, MA), 1983. Contributor to magazines and periodicals, including Radical America, Nation, Esquire, Vogue, New Republic, Z, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times Magazine.

Seven Days magazine, editor, 1974—; contributing editor, Ms., 1981—, and Mother Jones, 1988—; Time magazine, essayist, 1990-97.

Author of column, Mother Jones magazine, 1986-89; author of column, Guardian (London, England), 1992—.

ADAPTATIONS:

"Wage Slaves: Not Getting by in America," a segment of the A&E series Investigative Reports, was based in part on Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America and aired August 26, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

An outspoken feminist, journalist, and socialist party leader, Barbara Ehrenreich crusades for social justice in her books. Although many of her early works were shaped by her formal scientific training—she holds a Ph.D. in biology—her later works have moved beyond health care concerns to the plight of women and the poor. In addition to her numerous nonfiction books, Ehrenreich is widely known for her weekly columns in Time and the London Guardian.

Early in her career, while working for the Health Policy Advisory Center, Ehrenreich published a scathing critique of the American health "empire," exposing its inefficiency, inhumanity, and self-serving policies. Then, turning from the population in general to women in particular, Ehrenreich and her coauthor Deirdre English unveiled the male domination of the female health care system in Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness and For Her Own Good: One Hundred Fifty Years of the Experts' Advice to Women. In a controversial work, The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment, Ehrenreich takes on the whole male establishment, challenging the assumption that feminism is at the root of America's domestic upheaval.

Describing The Hearts of Men as a study of "the ideology that shaped the breadwinner ethic," Ehrenreich surveys the three decades between the 1950s and the 1980s, showing how male commitment to home and family collapsed during this time. "The result," according to New York Times contributor Eva Hoffman, "is an original work of cultural iconography that supplements—and often stands on its head—much of the analysis of the relations between the sexes that has become the accepted wisdom of recent years." Ehrenreich's interpretation of the evidence led her to the surprising conclusion that anti-feminism evolved not in response to feminism—but to men's abdication of their breadwinner role.

The seeds of male revolt were planted as far back as the 1950s, according to Ehrenreich, when what she calls "the gray flannel dissidents" began to balk at their myriad responsibilities. "The gray flannel nightmare of the commuter train and the constant pressure to support a houseful of consumers caused many men to want to run away from it all," Carol Cleaver wrote in the New Leader. What held these men in check, says Ehrenreich, was the fear that, as bachelors, they would be associated with homosexuality. Hugh Hefner banished that stigma with the publication of Playboy, a magazine whose name alone "defied the convention of hard-won maturity," Ehrenreich says in her book. "The magazine's real message was not eroticism, but escape … from the bondage of breadwinning."

In the decades that followed, men's increasing "flight from commitment" was sanctioned by pop psychologists and other affiliates of the Human Potential Movement, who banished guilt and encouraged people to "do their own thing." Unfortunately for women, Ehrenreich concludes that men abandoned the breadwinner role "without overcoming the sexist attitudes that role has perpetuated: on the one hand, the expectation of female nurturance and submissive service as a matter of right; on the other hand a misogynist contempt for women as ‘parasites’ and entrappers of men." In response to male abdication, women increasingly adopted one of two philosophies: they became feminists, committed to achieving economic and social parity with men, or they became anti-feminists, who tried to keep men at home by binding themselves ever more tightly to them. Despite such efforts, Ehrenreich concludes that women have not fared well, but instead have found themselves increasingly on their own "in a society that never intended to admit us as independent persons, much less as breadwinners for others."

Widely reviewed in both magazines and newspapers, The Hearts of Men was hailed for its provocative insights—even as individual sections of the study were soundly criticized. In her Village Voice review, for example, Judith Levine was both appreciative of the work and skeptical of its conclusions: "Barbara Ehrenreich—one of the finest feminist-socialist writers around—has written a witty, intelligent book based on intriguing source material. The Hearts of Men says something that needs saying: men have not simply reacted to feminism—skulking away from women and children, hurt, humiliated, feeling cheated of their legal and emotional rights. Men, as Ehrenreich observes, have, as always, done what they want to do…. I applaud her on-the-mark readings of Playboy, medical dogma, and men's liberation; her insistence that the wage system punishes women and children when families disintegrate; her mordant yet uncynical voice." But at the same time, Levine judged the central thesis of the book as "wrong": "When she claims that the glue of families is male volition and the breadwinner ideology—and that a change in that ideology caused the breakup of the family—I am doubtful," commented the critic. "The ideology supporting men's abdication of family commitment is not new. It has coexisted belligerently with the breadwinner ethic throughout American history."

In the 1986 Re-making Love: The Feminization of Sex, coauthored with Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs, Ehrenreich reports on and applauds the freer attitudes towards sex that women adopted in the 1970s and 1980s. The authors assert that women have gained the ability to enjoy sex just for the sake of pleasure, separating it from idealistic notions of love and romance. In her review of Re-making Love for the Chicago Tribune, Joan Beck noted that the book "is an important summing up of what has happened to women and sex in the last two decades and [that it] shows why the sex revolution requires re-evaluation." Beck, however, argued that the authors ignore the "millions of walking wounded"—those affected by sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy, or lack of lasting relationships. Washington Post Book World contributor Anthony Astrachan also expressed a wish for a deeper analysis, but nevertheless found Re-making Love "full of sharp and sometimes surprising insights that come from looking mass culture full in the face."

Ehrenreich's next work to attract critical notice, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, examines the American middle class and its attitudes towards people of the working and poorer classes. Jonathan Yardley stated in the Washington Post that what Ehrenreich actually focuses on is a class "composed of articulate, influential people … in fact what most of us think of as the upper-middle class." According to Ehrenreich this group perceives itself as threatened, is most concerned with self-preservation, and has isolated itself—feeling little obligation to work for the betterment of society. This attitude, Ehrenreich maintains, is occurring at a time when the disparity in income between classes has reached the greatest point since World War II and has become "almost as perilously skewed as that of India," as Joseph Coates quoted from Fear of Falling in Tribune Books.

Toronto Globe and Mail contributor Maggie Helwig, though praising the book as "witty, clever, [and] perceptive," described as unrealistic Ehrenreich's hope for a future when everyone could belong to the professional middle class and hold fulfilling jobs. Similarly, David Rieff remarked in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that Ehrenreich's proposed solutions to class polarization are overly optimistic and tend to romanticize the nature of work. "Nonetheless," Rieff concluded: "Fear of Falling is a major accomplishment, a breath of fresh thinking about a subject that very few writers have known how to think about at all." The book elicited even higher praise from Coates, who deemed it "a brilliant social analysis and intellectual history, quite possibly the best on this subject since Tocqueville's."

In The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed, Ehrenreich discusses in a series of reprinted articles what some consider to be one of the most self-involved and consumeristic decades in American history: the 1980s. Most of these articles first appeared in Mother Jones, but some come from such periodicals as the Nation, Atlantic, the New York Times, and New Republic. Together, they summarize "what Ms. Ehrenreich sees as the decade's salient features: blathering ignorance, smug hypocrisy, institutionalized fraud, and vengeful polarization—all too dangerous to be merely absurd," wrote H. Jack Geiger in the New York Times Book Review. "One of Mrs. Ehrenreich's main themes," observed New York Times reviewer Herbert Mitgang, "is that the Reagan Administration, which dominated the last decade, cosmeticized the country and painted over its true condition. The author writes that the poor and middle class are now suffering the results of deliberate neglect."

The Snarling Citizen: Essays collects fifty-seven previously published essays, most of which Ehrenreich contributed to Time and the Guardian. The essays once again reveal the author's passion for social justice and feminism. Although some reviewers took exception with Ehrenreich's opinions in these pieces, nearly all lavished praise on her well-honed writing style. Writing in the Chicago Tribune Books, for example, Penelope Mesic remarked that the pieces in The Snarling Citizen "startle and invigorate because those who espouse liberal causes—feminism, day care, and a strong labor movement—all too often write a granola of prose: a mild, beige substance that is, in a dull way, good for us. Ehrenreich is peppery and salacious, bitter with scorn, hotly lucid." Women's Review of Books contributor Nan Levinson commended the author for her "writing, a hymn to pithiness and wit, and her ear, attuned to the ways in which language redefined becomes thought reconstructed and politics realigned." Andrew Ferguson, however, commenting in the American Spectator, took issue with what he called the author's habit of building entire essays around "casual misstatements" of fact. In addition, while conceding that Ehrenreich "knows that caricature can be a verbal art," Ferguson maintained that "too often her fondness for exaggeration and hyperbole drags her into mere buffoonery." While noting that the collection's pieces are all so similar in "size …, voice and essentially … subject" that they "resemble a box of Fig Newtons," Levinson declared: "Ehrenreich is a rare thing in American public life today—a freelance thinker."

In Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War, Ehrenreich examines evidence from a variety of disciplines to arrive at a new theory of why humans are so thoroughly devoted to making war on each other. Combining material from anthropology, religion, military theory, and general history, "she comes up with a fascinating perspective on our staunch—indeed, religious—devotion to mass, mutual slaughter. Rather than tracing war back to its supposed roots in man-the-hunter, she finds a more likely ancestor in man-the-hunted," observed Laura Shapiro in Newsweek. For Ehrenreich, war did not originate in any conflict between humans, in any desire for one group to eliminate another and seize its property, or in the heady and sustaining power of the hunt. Instead, the instinct for war was spawned in the cold terror of the night, when early man realized that there were hungry creatures out there far more powerful and canny than them. They did not control those beasts; humans were prey for them, and the only way to survive was to undertake organized group defense, to kill before being killed and devoured. "For early human beings, learning to kill predator beasts was an epochal event, like the making of tools, the conquest of fire, the invention of agriculture," commented a reviewer in the Atlantic Monthly. "Through bloody rites, perhaps humans could shed their cringing status and be reborn predatory and triumphant," stated Susan Faludi in the Nation. Once the tendency toward war was ignited by these primal fears, it became self-perpetuating. "What keeps war alive isn't armies, she learned, but a process akin to contagion. A tribe may love peace, but if its neighbors are warlike, it will fight or be wiped out. Simply, war begets war," Shapiro stated. Ehrenreich's "thesis is fascinating, and the anthropological exposition is well written and convincing," remarked Library Journal reviewer Robert Persing. Edd Doerr, writing in the Humanist, called Blood Rites a "remarkable, important book."

In June 1998 Ehrenreich embarked on what was to become perhaps her best-known project. "I leave behind everything that normally soothes the ego and sustains the body—home, career, companion, reputation, ATM card—," as she explained in a 1999 Harper's article, "and plunge into the low-wage workforce." Following up on such previous studies as Fear of Falling, Ehrenreich spent two years living the life of the American working class, and what she discovered turned into the bestselling 2001 expose, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America.

A successful, affluent, Ph.D. candidate, the author created a new persona—Barbara Ehrenreich, divorced homemaker with some housekeeping experience—and set off on a tour of the country attempting to sustain herself at what are commonly called "entry-level" jobs. In Ehrenreich's case, that meant waiting tables and cleaning hotel rooms in Key West, Florida; working at a nursing home in Portland, Maine; and becoming a Wal-Mart "associate" in Minneapolis. As she pointed out, Ehrenreich herself was not too far removed from the working class: her father was a copper miner, her husband a warehouse worker, and her sister an employee in the kind of low-wage jobs the author now was sampling. Nor did she harbor any illusions about her temporary status among the working class: "My aim is nothing so mistily subjective as to ‘experience poverty’ or find out how it ‘really feels’ to be a long-term low-wage worker," she asserted in Harper's. "And with all my real-life assets—bank account, IRA, health insurance, multiroom home—waiting indulgently in the background, I am, of course, thoroughly insulated from the terrors that afflict the genuinely poor."

As the author related in the Harper's piece that was expanded into Nickel and Dimed: "My first task is to find a place to live. I figure that if I can earn $7 an hour—which, from the want ads, seems doable—I can afford to spend $500 [per month] on rent." In affluent Key West, that amount might finance "flophouses and trailer homes," the latter of which featured "no air-conditioning, no screens, no fans, no television and, by way of diversion, only the challenge of evading the landlord's Doberman pinscher." But even that rent was 675 dollars per month—out of Ehrenreich's reach. "It is a shock to realize that ‘trailer trash’ has become, for me, a demographic category to aspire to."

Though she equipped herself with three essentials for her study—a car, a laptop computer, and 1,300 dollars startup funds—Ehrenreich quickly learned that earning money for the basics of life came much harder in the service sector. She discovered a booming trade in Key West's "hospitality industry" and noted that her demographic—white, female, English-speaking—gave her an advantage at hiring time. She initially dismissed such options as desk-clerking (too much standing), waitressing (too much walking), and telemarketing (wrong personality type). That left Ehrenreich to fill out applications at hotels, supermarkets, inns, and guesthouses. But her phone seldom rang. To the author's surprise, she learned that the larger chains often run continual help-wanted ads, even when no jobs were open, to build a candidate safety net against the constant turnover in the service field.

Ehrenreich finally landed at a small chain-hotel's restaurant, as a server. She doled out drinks, made salads and desserts, and tended to "side work," which she defines as "sweeping, scrubbing, slicing, refilling, and restocking." The break room, servers were informed by management, was not a right, but a privilege. Her wage came to $5.15 per hour, not including tips that dried up with the summer heat. Ehrenreich realized she could not afford her 500-dollar efficiency apartment and must find a second job. She took a job at "Jerry's," her alias for a large, well-known family restaurant chain. If anything, the conditions were even worse: "The break room typifies the whole situation: there is none, because there are no breaks at Jerry's. For six to eight hours in a row, you never sit except to pee." She later landed what she considered a dream job of housekeeping in a hotel: stripping beds, scrubbing bathrooms, and handling giant vacuum cleaners on four-hour, no-break shifts. A month working in Key West netted Ehrenreich approximately 1,040 dollars; after expenses she was left with 22 dollars, and had no health insurance.

"How former welfare recipients and single mothers will (and do) survive in the low-wage workforce, I cannot imagine," Ehrenreich wrote. This comment is a running theme of Nickel and Dimed, as the jobs the author described are typical of those taken by the some twelve million women who are the objects of welfare reform, "workfare," or other such governmental policies. To Salon.com reviewer Laura Miller, "one of the sly pleasures of Nickel and Dimed is the way it dances on the line between straightforward social protest and an edgier acknowledgment of inconvenient truths."

Other critical reaction to Ehrenreich's book ranged from skeptical to admiring. In the former camp was Julia Klein, whose question in American Prospect was: "In the end, what has [Ehrenreich] accomplished? It's no shock that the dollars don't add up; that affordable housing is hard, if not impossible, to find; and that taking a second job is a virtual necessity for many of the working poor." After labeling the author "a prickly, self-confident woman and the possessor of a righteous, ideologically informed outrage at America's class system that can turn patronizing at times," Klein went on to acknowledge that Nickel and Dimed is still "a compelling and timely book whose insights sometimes do transcend the obvious." Similarly, Humanist contributor Joni Scott mentioned an early reluctance to read the memoirs of an affluent person living temporarily as poor, but found that Ehrenreich's work is "an important literary contribution and a call to action that I hope is answered. I believe this book should be required reading for corporate executives and politicians," Scott concluded. "This book opens one's eyes very wide indeed," declared a reviewer for M2 Best Books. And in the view of Bob Hulteen of Sojourners, "Definitional books come around about once a decade. Such books so describe the reality of the age in simple terms that the impact is felt from after-dinner conversations to federal policy discussions." Nickel and Dimed, he added, "will likely join this pantheon."

Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, edited by Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, contains a collection of fifteen essays that examine the impact that globalization has had on millions of women from third-world countries as they leave the poverty of their homelands to undertake jobs as domestic servants in first-world nations. The authors "explore the ramifications of this transfer of caring skills as it affects the culture" in both countries, noted Mary Whaley in Booklist. In many cases, the immigrant workers are sending resources back home to help sustain their families. However, in other cases, women coming in from third-world countries are forced to leave their own children behind, in the care of relatives, while they work in wealthy households providing child care to the offspring of affluent others. The irony of this arrangement is not lost on the contributors. The authors also consider the troubles of women who come to first-world countries to provide care for the disabled and elderly, and the sex workers in nations such as Thailand, who are often enslaved and forced to remain prostitutes. "While one small book can't say everything about a major global phenomenon," the editors and authors "have at least brought attention to these women's plight," noted a contributor to Publishers Weekly. "In the end, Global Woman is less about globalization than it is about migration, but that hardly diminishes its importance," commented Susan J. Douglas in the Nation. "While one would indeed like some of these essays to be more thoroughly researched and contextualized, First World women unaware of the working conditions faced by these migrant workers will find this to be a consciousness-raising book."

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, which America reviewer Michael V. Tueth called a "thoroughgoing piece of social history," is Ehrenreich's exploration of festivals, public celebrations, and other forms of communal celebrations. She offers "an absorbing look at the joy of life expressed in communal rituals of dance and celebration," commented Vanessa Bush in Booklist. She traces the origins of such celebrations, considers in depth their role in society and their importance to the general population, discovers that lack of celebrations can result in widespread depression and emotional distress, and makes a case for the fundamental need of humans to express their positive emotions in a communal setting. "Ehrenreich writes with grace and clarity in a fascinating, wide-ranging and generous account," stated a Publishers Weekly contributor. A Kirkus Reviews critic called the book "a serious look at communal celebrations, well documented and presented with assurance and flair."

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream takes the next logical step from Nickel and Dimed and looks at the reality faced by the unemployed white-collar professional. With the corporate employment world scourged by the effects of downsizing and outsourcing, she found that the prospects for white-collar job seekers are bleaker than ever. Forging a new identity by taking on her birth name of Barbara Alexander, she presents herself as a former homemaker seeking to re-enter the workplace. Her goal: a job paying somewhere near 50,000 dollars per year, with benefits, that would place her in the middle class category. Her search netted her few responses and fewer job offers. Instead, she discovered an extensive but parasitical network of career coaches, networking professionals, image renovators, and others whose stated goal is to help people find jobs, but who deliver few results. Personality tests suggest that positive attitude and a subservient demeanor is more important than professional skills or the actual ability to get a job done. Online job sites provide no results. Networking events produce no contacts or offers. Some job coaches insist that it is Ehrenreich's bad attitude that is holding her back, while others suggest that trusting in divine guidance will lead to success. "One of the most insidious effects of this culture is the extent to which it loads shame and self-loathing on the individual," observed Kira Cochrane in New Statesman, based on the notion that the job seekers' failure is due to a negative attitude or insufficient networking, rather than the result of a corporate culture gone awry. Ehrenreich "offers a realistic, sometimes despairing perspective on the corporate world and a job hunter's travails," commented Booklist critic Barbara Jacobs. Library Journal contributor Jack Forman, however, noted that the author "ends up exposing the emptiness and disingenuousness of those she consulted more than analyzing the challenges confronting her fellow job seekers." A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the book "another unsealing message about an ugly America from a trustworthy herald. Read it and weep—especially if you're a job-seeker."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Ehrenreich, Barbara, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2001.

PERIODICALS

America, May 28, 2007, Michael V. Tueth, "Communal Ecstasy!," review of Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, p. 25.

American Prospect, July 30, 2001, Julia Klein, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 43.

American Spectator, August, 1995, Andrew Ferguson, review of The Snarling Citizen: Essays, p. 66.

Arena Magazine, June 1, 2006, review of Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, p. 46.

Armed Forces & Society, fall, 1999, Daniel Moran, review of Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War, p. 111.

Atlantic Monthly, August, 1997, review of Blood Rites, p. 88.

Back Stage West, September 19, 2002, Jean Schiffman, "Trials of Job," review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 11.

Barron's, August 6, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 37.

Booklist, March 15, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 1209; April 1, 2001, George Cohen, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 43; December 1, 2002, Mary Whaley, review of Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, p. 633; September 15, 2005, Barbara Jacobs, review of Bait and Switch, p. 14; February 15, 2007, Vanessa Bush, review of Dancing in the Streets, p. 19.

Business Week, May 28, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 24; December 10, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 22; September 12, 2005, "Hard at (No) Work; an Insightful but Flawed Look into ‘the Land of the Undead,’ as One Job-seeker Calls It," review of Bait and Switch, p. 108.

Chicago Tribune, September 25, 1986, Joan Beck, review of Re-making Love: The Feminization of Sex; November 2, 2005, Connie Lauerman, "Barbara Ehrenreich: Exposing Dirty Secrets of White-collar Unemployment in Book," review of Bait and Switch.

Christian Century, August 1, 2001, Lillian Daniel, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 30; September 6, 2003, "Century Marks," p. 6; November 29, 2005, Lillian Daniel, "Lost in Transition," review of Bait and Switch, p. 40.

Christian Science Monitor, July 12, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 17; November 15, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 14.

Columbia Journalism Review, November-December, 2003, Scott Sherman, "Class Warrior: Barbara Ehrenreich's Singular Crusade," profile of Barbara Ehrenreich, p. 34; September-October, 2005, Kim Phillips-Fein, "White-collar Blues: Barbara Ehrenreich in the Corporate Quicksand," review of Bait and Switch, p. 69.

Commonweal, January 13, 2006, Eugene McCarraher, "Tighten Your Belts," review of Bait and Switch, p. 28.

Dissent, fall, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 131.

Entertainment Weekly, August 6, 1993, Nisid Hajari, review of Kipper's Game, p. 52; June 13, 1997, L.S. Klepp, review of Blood Rites, p. 60; May 29, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 69; December 21, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 132; September 9, 2005, Jennifer Reese, review of Bait and Switch, p. 147.

Foreign Affairs, March-April, 1998, Eliot A. Cohen, review of Blood Rites, p. 146.

Fortune, September 5, 2005, Marc Gunther, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 155.

Free Inquiry, winter, 1997, Timothy J. Madigan, "Dissecting the Passions of War," interview with Barbara Ehrenreich, p. 35.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 26, 1989, Maggie Helwig, review of Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class.

Harvard Business Review, January, 2002, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 107.

Houston Business Journal, September 21, 2001, Jenna Colley, "Rogue Writer Offers Perspective on Poor," review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 1.

Humanist, November, 1998, Edd Doerr, review of Blood Rites, p. 47; September, 2001, Joni Scott, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 40.

International Journal on World Peace, December, 1998, Gordon Anderson, review of Blood Rites, p. 111.

Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law, winter, 2002, Lynn Cunningham, review of Nickel and Dimed, pp. 159-161.

Journal of Peace Research, September, 1999, review of Blood Rites, p. 611.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 475; October 1, 2002, review of GlobalWoman, p. 1442; July 1, 2005, review of Bait and Switch, p. 717; October 15, 2006, review of Dancing in the Streets, p. 1054.

Kliatt, January, 2006, Nancy Chaplin, review of Bait and Switch, p. 52.

Library Journal, May 1, 1997, Robert Persing, review of Blood Rites, p. 119; May 1, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 115; November 1, 2002, Sandra Isaacson, review of Global Woman, p. 118; September 1, 2005, Jack Forman, review of Bait and Switch, p. 164.

Long Island Business News, July 19, 2002, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 25A.

Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2001, David Ulin, "Life at the Bottom of the Food Chain," p. E1.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 20, 1989, David Rieff, review of Fear of Falling; May 27, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 4; December 2, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 24.

M2 Best Books, May 2, 2002, review of Nickel and Dimed; October 22, 2003, Darren Ingram, review of Global Woman.

Marine Corps Gazette, August, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 73.

Money, June, 2007, Jennifer Merritt, "White-Collar Organizer," interview with Barbara Ehrenreich, p. 29.

Mother Jones, September 1, 2005, Julia M. Klein, review of Bait and Switch, p. 79.

Ms., April-May, 2001, Vivien Labaton, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 88.

Multinational Monitor, October 1, 2001, "The View from Below: How the U.S. Working Poor Don't Get By," interview with Barbara Ehrenreich, p. 19.

Nation, December 24, 1983, review of The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment, p. 669; May 12, 1997, Susan Faludi, review of Blood Rites, p. 24; April 28, 2003, Susan J. Douglas, "The New Globetrotters," review of Global Woman, p. 36.

Naval War College Review, autumn, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 157.

NEA Today, May 1, 2007, "Questions for Barbara Ehrenreich," p. 17.

New Leader, July 11, 1983, Carol Cleaver, review of The Hearts of Men.

New Statesman, November 28, 1997, Roz Kaveney, "Tiger Meat," review of Blood Rites, p. 50; October 27, 2003, Barbara Gunnell, "Thoroughly Bad Behavior: The Middle-class Woman Is Accused of Being a Selfish, Antisocial Exploiter of Poor Migrant Labor, and Much Else. Barbara Gunnell Asks If She Deserves So Much Abuse," p. 22; March 27, 2006, Kira Cochrane, "The Cult of Cheerfulness: When Barbara Ehrenreich Set out to Investigate Corporate Culture in America, She Found a Sinister, ‘Christianised’ World Where Anger Is Outlawed," review of Bait and Switch, p. 24; April 16, 2007, Barbara Gunnell, "Let's Get Together," review of Dancing in the Streets, p. 58.

New Statesman & Society, May 20, 1994, Vicky Hutchings, review of Kipper's Game, p. 37.

Newsweek, June 9, 1997, Laura Shapiro, review of Blood Rites, p. 78; June 4, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 57.

New York Times, January 20, 1971, review of The American Health Empire: Power, Profits, and Politics: A Report from the Health Policy Advisory Center, p. 33; August 16, 1983, Eva Hoffman, review of The Hearts of Men; May 16, 1990, Herbert Mitgang, review of The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed; July 30, 2001, Bob Herbert, "Unmasking the Poor," p. A21.

New York Times Book Review, March 7, 1971, review of The American Health Empire, p. 3; June 5, 1983, review of The Hearts of Men, p. 12; August 6, 1989, Jefferson Morley, review of Fear of Falling, p. 12; May 20, 1990, H. Jack Geiger, review of The Worst Years of Our Lives; June 14, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 32; May 13, 2001, Dorothy Gallagher, "Making Ends Meet," p. 10; May 20, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 67; June 3, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 30; January 14, 2007, Robert Pinsky, "Up Front," review of Dancing in the Streets, p. 4; January 14, 2007, Robert Pinsky, "All Together Now," review of Dancing in the Streets, p. 10.

Observer (London, England), October 11, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 16.

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, autumn, 2003, Gordon Bendersky, "The Maligning of a Country Doctor," p. 521.

Philadelphia Inquirer, November 16, 2005, Glenn C. Altschuler, review of Bait and Switch.

Population and Development Review, June 1, 2003, Judith A. Diers, review of Global Woman, p. 330.

Progressive, January, 1995, Ruth Conniff, review of Kipper's Game, p. 47; February, 1995, Ruth Conniff, interview with Barbara Ehrenreich, p. 34; January, 2002, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 42.

Public Interest, winter, 2002, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 141.

Publishers Weekly, April 26, 1993, review of Kipper's Game, p. 55; July 26, 1993, Wendy Smith, "Barbara Ehrenreich: The Nonfiction Writer and Social Activist Has Produced Her First Novel," review of Kipper's Game, p. 46; April 7, 1997, review of Blood Rites, p. 82; May 14, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 67; September 23, 2002, review of Global Woman, p. 58; July 11, 2005, review of Bait and Switch, p. 72; November 6, 2006, review of Dancing in the Streets, p. 48; November 20, 2006, "PW Talks with Barbara Ehrenreich: Joy to the World," p. 49.

Radical Teacher, summer, 2005, Siskanna Naynaha, review of Global Woman, p. 40.

Readings, September, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 33.

Reference & User Services Quarterly, spring, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 274.

Sarasota Herald Tribune, November 28, 2005, Susan L. Rife, "White-Collar Woes; Nickel and Dimed Author Barbara Ehrenreich Attempts to Get a Job in Bait and Switch," p. 1.

School Library Journal, December, 2001, Barbara Genco, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 57.

Social Service Review, March, 2002, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 196.

Sojourners, January-February, 2002, Bob Hulteen, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 56; December 1, 2005, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 11.

Time, May 7, 1990, Priscilla Painton, review of The Worst Years of Our Lives, p. 110; May 19, 1997, review of Blood Rites, p. 95.

Times Literary Supplement, April 10, 1998, review of Blood Rites, p. 3.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), September 24, 1989, Joseph Coates, review of Fear of Falling; May 28, 1995, Penelope Mesic, review of The Snarling Citizen, p. 3.

Village Voice, August 23, 1983, Judith Levine, review of The Hearts of Men.

Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. W10.

Washington Monthly, July-August, 2003, Jonathan Rowe, "Maid to Order: The Third World Women Who Leave Their Children to Take Care of Ours," review of Global Woman, p. 47.

Washington Post, August 23, 1989, Jonathan Yardley, review of Fear of Falling; June 10, 2001, Katherine Newman, "Desperate Hours," p. T03.

Washington Post Book World, November 9, 1986, Anthony Astrachan, review of Re-making Love; February 25, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 6; June 10, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 3.

Women's Review of Books, October, 1995, Nan Levinson, review of The Snarling Citizen, p. 25; December, 1997, Adrienne Zihlman, review of Blood Rites, p. 14; July, 2001, Jacqueline Jones, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 5, and "Down and Out in America," interview with Barbara Ehrenreich, p. 6; January, 2004, Martha Nichols, "Nannies around the World," review of Global Woman, p. 12.

World & I, December, 2001, review of Nickel and Dimed, p. 250.