A very interesting, if somewhat politically confused, look at the US working class (specifically those who are white and from the South). Bageant's rather idiosyncratic mixture of left-liberalism and social democracy is often internally contradictory, but he clearly has something of a working class consciousness, even if it is tainted by a strong dose of liberalism and illusion in the potential of the Democratic party and of tertiary education. The book is entertainingly written, often insightful, has good positions on topics like gun control, imperialism and prisons, and is a good antidote to other books in a similar vein such as Hillbilly Elegy. A shame about the weird chunks of one chapter that ramble on about Scotts-Irish culture and King James and how they somehow are responsible for white trash, though.