12 books to help you fight the system

Cover of Hillbilly Elegy (Image via Harper)

4. Hillbilly Elegy

After the most recent presidential election, much has been made of the white, rural, and poor communities that voted for Trump. Some analyses have been little more than defenses for an old way focused on racism, sexism, and homophobia. However, it is difficult to deny that rural, largely white culture played a significant role in the rise of Trump.

In that wake of the election, I’m sure that you’ve seen justifications and angry, blame-filled screeds on either side of the aisle. However, it is also important that we expand our ideological bubbles in this time. Many of us, thanks to social media algorithms and our own principles, managed to create online lives that spoke to us and our peers. These “echo chambers”, as they’ve become known, often do little to expand our worldviews and rarely present us with truly challenging ideas.

That’s not to say that you need to grin and bear it when some relative posts outright racism. However, many of us could stand to empathize with cultures and worldviews that present significant challenges to our own.

That’s where Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis comes in. As you may guess by the title, author J.D. Vance grew up in the Appalachian regions of Ohio and Kentucky. He therefore has a deep understanding of the “hillbilly” culture and people. That doesn’t mean he creates excuses for the dark side of that culture, however. Vance presents a provocative, challenging work. Hillbilly Elegy will not make you feel comfortable by any means, but it presents an important portrait of a people and society that influenced the 2016 election.