Maggie's Farm

Just stumbled on this 2001 book by Ted Dalrymple: Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass.

I think I'll track down a copy. It's the first book I have heard of from a Psychiatrist taking a look at the topic, and Dalrymple has spent much of his career in tattoo land. 

I assume he is talking about Brit families of multi-generational poverty and dysfunction rather than the temporarily poor (eg the unemployed, new immigrants, grad students, people down on their luck, etc) or the electively poor (eg hippies, small farmers and farm help, spendthrifts, Maine fishing and hunting guides, aspiring artists and actors, etc) who together make up much of the American poverty stats. 

Addendum: By coincidence I see from Insty that Dalrymple has a new book:

IN THE MAIL: From Theodore Dalrymple, The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism.

Can he say that nowadays? Oh, I forgot. He's in the USA now, isn't he?

Photo: Ted Dalrymple, aka Anthony Daniels MD, retired Psychiatrist