Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the Ruth Benedict PrizeThe story of a small town’s fight over LGBTQ+ rights that reveals how the far right weaponizes social issues to declare whose lives are valuable—and whose are expendableA new preface bridges the past and the present in Arlene Stein’s award-winning work of narrative sociology,
The Stranger Next Door, contextualizing the so-called “culture wars” as they have evolved since the post-Reagan years. With deep on-the-ground research and vivid storytelling, Stein explores how the right mobilizes fear and uncertainty to shift blame onto “strangers” and how these symbolic struggles undermine democracy.
Faced with globalization and automation, the working-class citizens of the Pacific Northwest’s “Timbertown” felt left behind, fearing job loss and the hollowing out of their small town. Religious conservatives convinced many local citizens that queer people were t
