Publisher Description

The award-winning journalist reveals the untold story of why America is so culturally and politically divided in this groundbreaking book.

Armed with startling demographic data, Bill Bishop demonstrates how Americans have spent decades sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities—not by region or by state, but by city and neighborhood. With ever-increasing specificity, we choose the communities and media that are compatible with our lifestyles and beliefs. The result is a country that has become so ideologically inbred that people don't know and can't understand those who live just a few miles away.

In The Big Sort, Bishop explores how this phenomenon came to be, and its dire implications for our country. He begins with stories about how we live today and then draws on history, economics, and our changing political landscape to create one of the most compelling big-picture accounts of America in recent memory.

Author Biography

BILL BISHOP was a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman when he began research on city growth and political polarization with the sociologist and statistician Robert Cushing. Bishop has worked as a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, and, with his wife, owned and operated the Bastrop County Times, a weekly newspaper in Smithville, Texas. He lives in Austin.

Review

"Essential reading for activists, poli-sci types, journalists and trend-watchers." Kirkus Reviews "A timely, highly readable discussion of American neighborhoods and the implications of who lives in them." Library Journal "A book posing hard questions across the political spectrum." Booklist, ALA, Boxed Review "Bishop's argument is meticulously researched--surveys and polls proliferate--and his reach is broad." Publishers Weekly "a gripping new book" - The Economist "Jam-packed with fascinating data, "The Big Sort" presents a provocative portrait of the splintering of America." Boston Globe "[a] rich and challenging book about the ways in which the citizens of this country have, in the past generation, rearranged themselves into discrete enclaves that have little to say to one another and little incentive to bother trying." The Wall Street Journal --

Review Quote

"The Big Sort is thoughtful, on target, compelling, and well-written."

Excerpt from Book

THE AGE OF POLITICAL SEGREGATION You don't know me, but you don't like me.-- Homer Joy, "Streets of Bakersfield" How can the polls be neck and neck when I don't know one Bush supporter? -- Arthur Miller In the spring before the 2004 election, I heard from LaHonda Jo Morgan. Jo Morgan lived in Wauconda, Washington, a one-building town (combination grocery, caf

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