Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass

Here is a searing account-probably the best yet published-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 seemingly 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. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused no...