The Community-Building book club will aim to give people the resources and education necessary to fight tyranny in their communities. For people who want to help but don’t know where to start. For people who have been doing the work and want to connect with new people to join the fight. Enact change with small acts of kindness and love.

"Urgent and accessible . . . Its moral force is a gut punch."—The New Yorker

Why does the United States, the richest country on earth, have more poverty than any other advanced democracy? This is the question that acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond answers in his “fleet, fierce manifesto” (New York Times Book Review). Drawing on history, research, and original reporting, he shows how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, and stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists—to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.