Books like Coming Apart by Charles Murray

J.D. Vance’s memoir explores the hardships of America’s white working class through his upbringing in a Rust‑belt town, offering a detailed sociological analysis of poverty, family dynamics, and social mobility in rural Kentucky and Ohio.

David Brooks examines the shift from external accolades to internal virtues, using historical leaders to show how humility, self‑discipline, and moral depth guide true character and life fulfillment.

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt expose how three pervasive beliefs—"what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker," "always trust your feelings," and "life is a battle between good and evil"—have fueled a culture of safetyism that stifles free speech and undermines resilience on U.S. college campuses.

"The End of Ideology has been a landmark in American social thought, regarded even as a classic since its first publication in 1960. Daniel Bell postulated that the older humanistic ideologies derived from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were exhausted, and that new parochial ideologies would arise. In an essay new to the 2000 edition, he argues that with the end of communism, we are seeing a resumption of history, a lifting of the heavy ideological blanket and the return of traditional ethnic and religious conflicts in the many regions of the former socialist states and elsewhere. Indeed, he argues that as the world undergoes greater economic integration, it is also experiencing great political fragmentation, as people retreat to more primordial units for the purposes of self-identity."--BOOK JACKET.

The charges of white privilege and systemic racism that are tearing the country apart fIoat free of reality. Two known facts, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, need to be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about public policy: American whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have different violent crime rates and different means and distributions of cognitive ability. The allegations of racism in policing, college admissions, segregation in housing, and hiring and promotions in the workplace ignore the ways in which the problems that prompt the allegations of systemic racism are driven by these two realities. What good can come of bringing them into the open? America’s most precious ideal is what used to be known as the American Creed: People are not to be judged by where they came from, what social class they come from, or by race, color, or creed. They must be judged as individuals. The prevailing Progressive ideology repudiates that ideal, demanding instead that the state should judge people by their race, social origins, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. We on the center left and center right who are the American Creed’s natural defenders have painted ourselves into a corner. We have been unwilling to say openly that different groups have significant group differences. Since we have not been willing to say that, we have been left defenseless against the claims that racism is to blame. What else could it be? We have been afraid to answer. We must. Facing Reality is a step in that direction.

A critique of the white American class structure argues that the paths of social mobility that once advanced the nation are now serving to further isolate an elite upper class while enforcing a growing and resentful white underclass.