From Publishers Weekly

Economist and New York Times writer Krugman expands on the angry-liberal economic perspective of his newspaper columns, documenting the shrinking of the middle class and the increase in American economic inequality with statistics and well-chosen examples. Krugman's polemic is read by soap-opera actor Culp with unassuming ease. Culp reads like he imagines an economics professor might sound, but jazzes up the learning with a bit of actorly pizzazz. Having never met a sentence he didn't like, Culp turns Krugman's pessimistic diatribe into an oddly jaunty march through economic theory. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; Culp's voice is pleasant and makes for a nice accompaniment to Krugman's tome. Without him, consciences might not have been quite so stirred. Simultaneous release with the W.W. Norton hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 17).

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Product Description

America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past thirty years American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal’s achievements.

Now, the tide may be turning–and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world’s most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.

Krugman ranges over a century of history and shows that neither the American middle-class nor the baby boomers grew up in the increasingly oligarchic nation we have become over the past generation evolved naturally: both were created, to a large extent, by government policies guided by organized political movements.

The Conscience of a Liberal promises to reshape public debate about American social policy and become a touchstone work for an entire generation.