TIME

An American underclass is up for discussion

CULTURE CLASS The Beverly Hillbillies traded in “mockery, not admiration,” of white-trash archetypes, Isenberg writes

THESE DAYS AMERICA CAN’T WAIT TO talk about class. In recent years, both financial crisis and stasis have prodded the nation to look hard at its systemic inequalities—even though a classless society is a foundational myth of the U.S. Just how fantastical that myth can be is the subject of Nancy Isenberg’s

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