In 1891 author and lecturer ”Max O’Rell” (being the pen name of one Léon Paul Blouet) published an amusing account of his travels through the States and Eastern Canada - "A Frenchman In America" - that, along with the charming illustrations, reflect on then popular national stereotypes and character and is presented on Project Gutenberg in its entirely. (via)
posted by The Whelk on Jul 7, 2012 - 16 comments

Paul Fussell, author of The Great War and Modern Memory and winner of the first National Critics Award for Criticism, but who is probably best known for writing Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, is dead. [more inside]
posted by postcommunism on May 23, 2012 - 48 comments

The Percentages: A Biography of Class. An autobiographical essay about growing up in the working class (as the author defines it) and then meeting the middle class (again, as the author defines it). This is so far outside my experience that I can't even summarize it properly, but it's worth reading.
posted by d. z. wang on Oct 16, 2011 - 123 comments

Americans have no idea how rich the rich are, nor how poor the poor are.
posted by Pope Guilty on Sep 29, 2010 - 237 comments

The Atlantic takes a look at the American Class System: a look at Paul Fussell's Class 25 years later. Of particular interest is the movement of Class 'X' from outside the system to the core of the status-obsessed center. [more inside]
posted by leotrotsky on Apr 15, 2009 - 157 comments

[NSFW] “[T]onight's orgy is fairly typical. . . . Within an hour or so, the guests—23 white couples and 3 black couples—have arrived, all of them here specifically to have sex with single black men often a decade or two their junior. There are 12 such men in the house tonight. They call themselves Mandingos. And this is a Mandingo party.”
posted by jason's_planet on Mar 31, 2007 - 250 comments

Class in American society, a survey by the Economist.
posted by daksya on Jul 17, 2005 - 48 comments

“Class warfare turns out to be alive,” Center director Robert Greenstein commented. “It is a centerpiece of the Nussle budget, with deep budget cuts that could harshly affect the poor, the vulnerable, and many middle-class Americans, alongside lavish tax cuts for the nation’s richest individuals. With this budget, we would be marching down the path toward a new Gilded Age.”

“The Nussle budget serves one very useful purpose.” Greenstein added. “It shows that these large tax cuts aren’t free, and that at bottom, the issue is one of national priorities. This ought to trigger a national debate. Are tax cuts averaging $90,000 a year for millionaires so high a priority that we should cut health care programs, increase the ranks of the uninsured, reduce the cost or limit the availability of student loans, and increase hardship among the disabled, poor children, and others to free up room for massive tax cuts?”

Possible Other Titles
Why is this rain yellow? or Hey, GWBush, self-appointed one of God, WWJD?
posted by nofundy on Mar 13, 2003 - 34 comments