Coming Apart

The State of White America, 1960–2010

By: Charles Murray

Narrated by: Traber Burns

Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling author of Losing Ground and The Bell Curve, this startling long-lens view shows how America is coming apart at the seams that have historically joined our social classes.

In Coming Apart, Charles Murray explores the formation of American classes that are different in kind from anything we have ever known, focusing on whites as a way of driving home the fact that the trends he describes do not break along lines of race or ethnicity.

Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship—a divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad.

The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering from erosions of family and community life that strike at the heart of the pursuit of happiness. This divergence puts the success of the American project at risk.

The evidence in Coming Apart is about white America. Its message is about all of America.

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He first came to national attention in 1984 with Losing Ground. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives with his wife in Burkittsville, Maryland.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2012 Cox and Murray, Inc. (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“A timely investigation into a worsening class divide no one can afford to ignore.” ( Publishers Weekly)

“[Charles Murray] argues for the need to focus on what has made the US exceptional beyond its wealth and military power… religion, marriage, industriousness, and morality.” ( Booklist)

“This is an immensely important and utterly gripping book… Coming Apart is a model of rigorous sociological inquiry, yet it is also highly readable. After the chronic incoherence of Occupy Wall Street, it comes as a blessed relief. Every American should read it. Too bad only the cognitive elite will.” (Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard and fellow of the Hoover Institution)

Probably better in the hard version

I really enjoyed this audio book, but it probably works better in hard copy because it includes charts and graphs. The fact that the appendices get covered in the audio version helps though.

Rigorous research well presented

The author's choice to analyze demographics of white people only is useful, because it mitigates the tendency to view this information through a racially stereotyped lens. Including religious traits was also a good choice; religious affiliation affects individual and community behaviors. The facts are relevant whether you agree with all of his conclusions or not. Glad I read it.

Good book if you like statistics

I love Charles Murray’s books and really wanted to get through it but it was just boring—it would have had to be something I needed to study to get through it. It just seemed like statistic after statistic, eventually I had no idea where we were in the book.

Thoughtful Analysis

Charles Murray did a great job at presenting a thoughtful analysis of trends and trajectories among the upper middle class, and "blue collar" Americans. I especially appreciated his overview of how many in the current upper middle class, came to be. In addition to this, he reveals that if trends (by this is meant their ongoing propensity to be insulated, aloft, or perhaps indifferent) were to continue unchanged, they as a group, could cause significant societal problems.

This is a great audiobook. Traber Burns did an exceptionally good job reading the text as well.

Excellent

In brutal scientific precession Murray shows how America has been torn asunder along class. One of the hardest and most important books to read on understanding what has happened to American society regardless of political persuasion.

Brilliant & Flawed

IMPORTANT FOR AUDIO
The format of "Coming Apart" is awkward for an audiobook because of the many references to graphs and tables. There's an accompanying PDF of these with the audiobook. I found that by reading the PDF before listening to the audiobook, I was able to following the reading fairly easily.

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There are plenty of professional journalists who have written extensive reviews and commentaries on "Coming Apart." For a particularly good one, see "Is the White Working Class Coming Apart?" by David Frum, or the review in the Wall Street Journal. These may be more useful than reviews given here.

"Coming Apart" has two basic sections: a description of the situation followed by analysis and opinions.

The description of the situation is brilliant. Regardless of your political persuasion, the description will probably strike you as being largely accurate about the changes and problems in America's socio-economic class structure.

Following this brilliant presentation, Murray gives his views and analysis from a libertarian viewpoint. Murray's analysis is what's flawed. While Murray does a good job at identifying why the upper class has become richer and larger, and why the children of the upper class are much more likely to remain in the upper class than they would have been prior to 1960, Murray's attempts to explain why the lower class has grown and is sociologically falling apart doesn't hold together. For politically interested readers with moderate and liberal views, this analysis may be particularly interesting, as it is a serious attempt at sociology from a libertarian/conservative perspective, and may provide some insights about how your political opposites think.

Alarming...empirically shows what I knew in my gut

As a trucker and an unofficial member of Fish Town the numbers are worse in 2017. I fear there is no hope without a wholesale return to Christian values. We need to acknowledge that as a society to admonish and shame is not necessarily a bad thing. My concern is the Belmont elites seem to think Europeans have the answer...they don't

Not suitable for audio

What did you like best about Coming Apart? What did you like least?

This book has some interesting content but due to the large number of charts and accompanying statistics it makes it rather unsuitable as an audio book. If you want to try this I'd recommend reading the book or ebook.

Was Coming Apart worth the listening time?

No.

Very Helpful in Understanding Our Society

Charles Murry explained very clearly what is going on in our society. If you want to understand the US better, and the big divides and lack of understanding between people, this is an excellent book. It is only with understanding that we can work successfully to change things. This book presents very logical reasons and ideas for a better future.

hard tp stay awake

Good explanation of USA's divisions. But stats and tables don't work with Audible. Constantly reference to appendix you can't access. The numbers just blur and run together
If you.re a policy maker the BOOK is a must READ. But you just can't listen. Also, while I suspect the trends are continuing, year 2000 census figures are getting stale.