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

Extremely compelling read

What made the experience of listening to The Divide the most enjoyable?

Ray Porter

Who was your favorite character and why?

Too many to remember

Have you listened to any of Ray Porter’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but look forward to seeking him out

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

The insanity of how money predisposes people to success or failure in life. To whom and where you are born pre-destines people to a life of misery or comfort. Life for some really isn't fair. It just is.

Any additional comments?

How in the hell did we get this way.

eye opening.

what a shock our government makes laws that protect the rich and prosecute the poor. I never knew just how lopsided it was. until now. it feels helpless knowing it will not ever change in my lifetime or the lifetime of my kids or grandkids. if ever.

A MUST READ

This is a book that ALL Americans should read/listen to! We would all start to fight for a better, more fair society!

Pretty good

It was entertaining. I don't care for the narrator but I've heard much worse. It's worth a credit.

Upsetting

As usual, this author gives you information without mercy, and truly that is why this book must be read.

Excellent Reader

Any additional comments?

I haven't posted a review before but I needed to compliment reader Ray Porter. The book itself is great but his reading makes it even better. He brings the perfect amount of performance into the book despite it being non-fiction. He's never over the top or distracting but he helps the best lines land with emotional force. I've listened to around 100 audiobooks in the last several years and this is the best reading I've heard. Great, great, great job.

The system is corrupt

Couldn't be told in a better way.
Taibbi on target with how off track we have become in this country

Entertaiing and informing...

Would you consider the audio edition of The Divide to be better than the print version?

Definitely... This narrator make ANY book better than the printed version.

What did you like best about this story?

The very best writer paired with the very best narrator .. there is no way not to love this book.

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

He always does... But he outdid himself with this book...

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The story of the hedge hogs.. oh yeah.. hedge fund managers.. trying to take down and break an insurance company... so they could make a profit on their huge stock bet.

Any additional comments?

It'll definitely gives you a different perspective ... You'll remember that the banker hogs and wall street thugs stole .. probably 10 times as much money... than all the poor have been given with welfare and food stamps ..And then when you hear the the Tea Partyers angry that the no-good, lazy, poor people got some help.. while they totally ignore and never saying a word about the trillions stolen by the banker and wall street gluttons....you'll realize the Tea Party is being led by their own enemy.. to their own destruction.

Excellent narration and easy to listen to

Taibbi has a casual style that is easy to listen and read. There are a lot of stats and facts which reinforces his contentions.

Pure insight

Few books I have read had the sheer ability to clearly illustrate a problem with society with case after case of hard hitting evidence