Books: A Thought-Provoking Look Into the Underclass

A review of Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade. Sentinel, 304 pages (June, 2019) Chris Arnade began his career not long after Michael Lewis retired from bond trading to write his 1989 memoir Liar's Poker. A physics PhD from Johns Hopkins, Arnade was one of the highly educated new breed of traders, and managed to stay two decades instead of two years like Lewis. But he found his way (or was ushered) to the exit a few years after the mortgage-backed securities blew up the financial system. The financial crisis caused Arnade to reevaluate his life and to begin chronicling inequality and poverty in America as a journalist. In parts travelogue, sociological observation, and personal memoir, Arnade presents his work as written articles and pictures, and the end result is reminiscent of Jacob Riis's nineteenth century classic How the Other Half Lives. Arnade's new book is called Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, and, within its pages, Arnade shows the explanatory limitations of the spreadsheets he used to understand the …