Synopses & Reviews
Life at the Bottom offers a searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does.
Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has apparently seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. He uses a remarkable gift for reportage to recount the behavior of his patients and to analyze its implications in underclass life and for our society as a whole.
"In fact most of the social pathology exhibited by the underclass has its origin in ideas that have filtered down from the intelligentsia," Dr. Dalrymple writes. Whether the subject is sexual relations, alcoholism and drug addiction, attitudes toward education, or marital abuse, he finds an essential self-deception at work among his patients. Its roots may be discovered in fashionable social policy: Life at the Bottom suggests that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims.
This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives.
Drawn from the pages of the cutting-edge political and cultural quarterly City Journal, Dr. Dalrymple's book features scores of eye-opening, true-life vignettes that are by turns hilariously funny; chillingly horrifying, and all too revealing sometimes all at once. His prose transcends journalism and achieves the quality of literature.
Review
"While Dalrymple is preaching to the converted, his vivid writing and often heartbreaking stories rise above his deeply felt but repetitive social analysis." Publishers Weekly
Review
"It is a truism that ideas have consequences, but a truism is rarely illustrated as implacably as in this book." George F. Will
Review
"[T]he best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams." Peggy Noonan
Synopsis
Theodore Dalrymple argues that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims.
Synopsis
A searing account of life in the underclass and why it persists as it does, written by a British psychiatrist.
About the Author
Theodore Dalrymple's is a physician and psychiatrist who practices in England. He writes a column for the London Spectator, contributes frequently to the Daily Telegraph, and is a contributing editor of the Manhattan's Institute's City Journal. His other books include Mass Listeria, an investigation into the meaning of health scares, and So Little Done, a novel about a serial killer. He lives in Birmingham, England.