The War at Home

The Domestic Costs of Bush’s Militarism

Frances Fox Piven

paperback

$14.95 / £9.99

The hardcover release of The War at Home helped turn the spotlight back to the home front, focusing attention on the  domestic causes and consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The subject of much attention upon its initial release, this sharp, incisive volume reveals the extent to which ordinary Americans, as well as Iraqis and Afghanis, are the victims of the Bush administration’s warmongering.

Frances Fox Piven, one of the country’s most celebrated political thinkers, explores the internal fallout of America’s most recent military conflicts. Her trenchant exploration puts America’s latest military involvement in historical context, revealing the way in which the current wars violate the lessons of history. While previous conflicts have led governments to compensate citizens for costly sacrifices in blood and money with progressive social programs at home, the Bush administration has rolled back democratic rights and slashed taxes for the rich, even reducing some
veterans’ benefits.

With an analysis of the way in which war has propped up American rulers, The War at Home makes sense of the Bush administration’s military adventures abroad in the context of current domestic policy.

Frances Fox Piven is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of Regulating the Poor, Poor People’s Movements, The New Class War, and The Breaking of the American Social Compact (The New Press), and co-author, with Richard A. Cloward of Why Americans Don’t Vote. She is the recipient of the American Sociological Association Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology. She lives in Manhattan and Millerton, New York.