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)

An important book

Would you listen to Coming Apart again? Why?

Have already listened to it twice. This is an important book for those wanting to understand one of the dynamics shaping our society -- bifurcation by cognitive ability -- and its implications. While that was not new to me, its dimensions and its effects added to what I had already dimly perceived. What was new was how and why it was destroying "American Exceptionalism". Murray lays out the drivers of human happiness and how the modern welfare state enervates true human happiness. His prescription for a potential rebirth is quite interesting, and plausible in theory, but I don't think it will happen any time soon, and certainly not soon enough to prevent the withering away of American Exceptionalism. Too many decades of brainwashing (I tried to think of a less pejorative term but could not) have shaped an important segment of our population to the absolute need for and advantages of the welfare state. Only a complete collapse of the welfare state, which is probably decades away now that the printing of money has not only become acceptable but demanded, will force us to rethink what we have been told and learned.

Who was your favorite character and why?

None

What does Traber Burns bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I probably would not have had the time to read the book. I listen to books when I exercise. Otherwise my day is quite full and there would be little time to read as many books as I listen to.

Murray's valedictory work...

Brilliant, data-driven work by America's premiere libertarian intellectual. I highly recommend it, whether you are a Bobo in Paradise, or not.

Excellent Source of Very Important Data

This book is chock full of useful data about the state of America today. Dr. Murray provides solid evidence of the growing cultural and communication gap between lower and working middle class Americans and the often named upper 1 percent. This time, he has avoided the racism charge often thrown at him in the past by comparing only white members of each social class. The data is here. Dr. Murray knows his facts. Shouting at them and denying them will not change reality.
The massive amount of data makes the text better as a reference source than as reading material and that's probably why the reading seemed dry. Still, the information was eye opening and important - well worth reading.
Members of our educated upper class, especially in government or the media, should read or listen to this book with care and attention. Your public pronouncements and the governmental policies you tend to support demonstrate a complete lack of awareness of what America's laboring classes think and care about. Historically, such gulfs in understanding have led to revolutions. With only one exception I know of, America, those have always turned out badly for everybody involved. The unique conditions that made America's revolution turn out well are no longer present, so let's not go there.
Read this book. Pay attention. Keep it as a reference. Share with others. Let's try to understand what's pulling America apart and try to put it back together again.

Class, not Race

I am not sure how this wound up on my reading list but I am glad it did. The author does a respectable job of handling data and explaining his reasoning on whether, for instance, two data sets support or confound one another and so should be explained or can be compartmentalized. At times I found this rigor to be a buzz kill but considering the controversy the topic and subject matter might generate, it was hard to be too harsh in my expectations that we " move this along" for the sake of my challenged attention span .

The author starts the book with the insistence that his desire is to look unblinkingly at the data with the intent of avoiding biases and preconceived notions. Based on the result, I think the author accomplishes this and gives the reader much to think about.

I found the author's insistence that the reader should consider his findings in light of their own experience to be humble and refreshing. I hope you will too.

Data-heavy for audio

Would you consider the audio edition of Coming Apart to be better than the print version?

This is a fantastic little bit of social science, but the author includes a lot of demographic data that can get confusing when in audio format. You'll lose some of the details by listening to it instead of reading it, but it will only matter if you're hoping to use the book as source material for research of your own. The narrator did what he could with it. Otherwise, well-performed and researched.

Take it from someone who’s lived in Fishtown

I was motivated to read this book first from hearing some interesting talking points from Murray on Sam Harris’ podcast, and then later because Philadelphia Bishop Charles Chaput referenced the book several times in his own book “Strangers in a Strange Land” which dedicated significant time to issues of culture and religiosity in modern America.

My main criticism of the book would be that some of the categories of upper and lower class seem arbitrary in a very Malcolm Gladwellian style (if that wasn’t a term, it is now). By the end of the book I’d moderate that criticism by saying any book on sociology will not be scientific as there are simply too many variables. I enjoyed this as speculation accompanied by statistics.

For all the purely materialist perspective I’ve been bombarded with (especially whenever things steer towards politics), it was very refreshing to get an approach that examines the effects of culture and religiosity on social class. I’ve lived in west Austin as well as Fishtown (areas specifically mentioned in the book), and I can attest that the statistics at least in these cases match my anecdotal experience. It’s ironic that since the publication of this book, the winds of gentrification have blown through Fishtown all but clearing out the prior inhabitants. I also have a vivid memory of a doctor I know who moved to Fishtown referring her neighbors who were born and raised in the neighborhood as, “you know, Trump people.” almost in a whispered tone as if they were unwelcome people of a foreign culture — perhaps they were.

The most surprising point the book makes is that in surveys that define religiosity as attending a service in the past week, people in the upper class (Murray defines this as a combination of income and education) are religious at roughly twice the rate of people in the lower class.

The data and discussion on single parenthood and the positive effect of complete families is a discussion that sorely needs to be had. Of course this is a third rail issue in the modern political world, but Murray is the second person I’ve heard bring it up now. The other was Larry Elder.

For the #yanggang people, this book briefly touches on UBI. I’m always skeptical of sweeping nationwide changes as having too many potential unintended negative consequences. I remain agnostic on this.

Anyways, it was a thought provoking and easy read. I think any discussion on social class should have at least some discussion about cultural differences.

A tough but must read

we wonder why it is the way it is and this will tell you why that is

Insightful

A data driven long term presentation and analysis of the widening cultural divide caused by a number of things including increasing non sectarianism, growing dependence on government with less self reliance and the breakdown of the two parent family.

Fails to Ask the Real Questions

Do you have any additional comments?

You have to appreciate Murray's desire to speak the hard truths and that is definitely the strength of his book. However, he's a policy man in the end, and much of what he presents is crippled by his avowed libertarianism. For example, he argues that working class men have lost the desire to be

Good statistical analysis of class division

You will learn about the new upper class in the new lower class trends in the white community over the last 50 years. The causes for these trends aren't necessarily discussed the trends are simply reported. America is coming apart at the seams based on class not race. Be prepared for a lot of statistical analysis.