The Divide

American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap

By: Matt Taibbi

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 14 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS

A scathing portrait of an urgent new American crisis

Over the last two decades, America has been falling deeper and deeper into a statistical mystery:

Poverty goes up. Crime goes down. The prison population doubles. Fraud by the rich wipes out 40 percent of the world’s wealth. The rich get massively richer. No one goes to jail.

In search of a solution, journalist Matt Taibbi discovered the Divide, the seam in American life where our two most troubling trends—growing wealth inequality and mass incarceration—come together, driven by a dramatic shift in American citizenship: Our basic rights are now determined by our wealth or poverty. The Divide is what allows massively destructive fraud by the hyperwealthy to go unpunished, while turning poverty itself into a crime—but it’s impossible to see until you look at these two alarming trends side by side.

In The Divide, Matt Taibbi takes readers on a galvanizing journey through both sides of our new system of justice—the fun-house-mirror worlds of the untouchably wealthy and the criminalized poor. He uncovers the startling looting that preceded the financial collapse; a wild conspiracy of billionaire hedge fund managers to destroy a company through dirty tricks; and the story of a whistleblower who gets in the way of the largest banks in America, only to find herself in the crosshairs. On the other side of the Divide, Taibbi takes us to the front lines of the immigrant dragnet; into the newly punitive welfare system which treats its beneficiaries as thieves; and deep inside the stop-and-frisk world, where standing in front of your own home has become an arrestable offense. As he narrates these incredible stories, he draws out and analyzes their common source: a perverse new standard of justice, based on a radical, disturbing new vision of civil rights.

Through astonishing—and enraging—accounts of the high-stakes capers of the wealthy and nightmare stories of regular people caught in the Divide’s punishing logic, Taibbi lays bare one of the greatest challenges we face in contemporary American life: surviving a system that devours the lives of the poor, turns a blind eye to the destructive crimes of the wealthy, and implicates us all.

©2014 Matt Taibbi (P)2014 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Ambitious . . . deeply reported, highly compelling . . . impossible to put down.”—The New York Times Book Review

“These are the stories that will keep you up at night. . . . The Divide is not just a report from the new America; it is advocacy journalism at its finest.”—Los Angeles Times

“[Matt] Taibbi is a relentless investigative reporter. He takes readers inside not only investment banks, hedge funds and the blood sport of short-sellers, but into the lives of the needy, minorities, street drifters and illegal immigrants, to juxtapose justice for the poor and the powerful. . . . The Divide is an important book. Its documentation is powerful and shocking.”—The Washington Post

This book makes you mad

It is absolutely disgusting to see that people are treated and delivered Justice differently based on their income level. The Divide is a reminder for all of us to work and fight against this Injustice.

No much Just in our Judicial system

Matt Taibbi does an excellent job of comparing and contrasting the injustices of the downtrodden to the huge commercial banks and those who run them. I wanted to reach out and strangle every politician, attorney, cop and even our president for the way they think.

Exposes Harsh Realities of Justice System

Don't expect to walk away from this book feeling great. Taibbi takes you on a journey of corporate cronies who'll never see a jail cell, and compares them to the regulars who get thrown in jail for just about anything a cop feels like putting on the police report. He gives stories that will make you angry at the whole system. There's no political favors in the book either, it's pretty even down the isle.

There are some parts that will completely go over your head and when you're about to say out loud "huh?" The authors says, "Confused yet?" Then he explains it in an easier way.

By the end I was a little fatigued with hearing the contrast between bankers who swindled millions and flew off into the sunset, and regulars who just try and make it through each month with a paycheck.

The narrator Ray Porter is the best in the business, can't go wrong with him.

Overall: This book will make you think twice about police, justice system, and bankers.

No One is Spared

Taibbi does his work, and he doesn't really hold back from criticizing anyone if he feels it is justified. Have to give him credit on this front. And the book overall does a very good job of broadening perspectives. I read it just pre-Ferguson. Dang.

Invigorating must read

This is a shoulder shaking, face-slapping, snap out-of-it account of how the bureaucracies of of law enforcement at the federal level and the local level treat the poor and the rich, the billion dollar multi-national companies and the small ones; how the constitutional rights of individuals are violated with impunity if you are poor and receiving public assistance, a debtor, or simply standing on the sidewalk in New York City. This is an invigorating book performed by Ray Porter who does one of the best jobs I have ever heard narrating a book. I highly recommend this book to read and this audible to listen to. I listen while reading. As an attorney I recommend this to all law students and new lawyers. Taibbi tells very compelling stories about people facing impossible systems. Read.

Spoken bluntly and in plain English

I've listened to this book 3 times and each time I understand a little more and the depth of the disfunction is a little more apparent. As disheartening as that is, I'm thankful for the information so plainly spoken. knowledge is power.

Too Big to Jail

True crime of obscene scale. America as a police state and the unfairness of it all.

This will greatly disturb you, read it anyway

Matt Taibbi breaks the financial crisis down into a digestible, albeit enraging story, that anyone can grasp. At the same time, he paints an alarming picture of the plight of the have nots in America today. Read this book. It is your patriotic duty.

Thank God for Matt Taibbi!

He breaks down impossible concepts into something everyone can understand. The man is incredible at putting together a tour de force in explaining the true divide in America today.

Amazing!

absolutely loved it. would recommend 10/10

will make your stomach turn. but in a much needed way