J D Vance

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERComing November 2020 as a major motion picture from Netflix starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close'The political book of the year' Sunday Times'A frank, unsentimental, harrowing memoir ... A superb book' New York Post'I bought this to try to better understand Trump's appeal ... but the memoir is so much more than that. A gripping, unputdownable page-turner' India Knight, Evening StandardJ. D. Vance grew up in the hills of Kentucky. His family and friends were the people most of the world calls rednecks, hillbillies or white trash.In this deeply moving memoir, Vance tells the story of his family's demons and of America ' s problem with generational neglect. How his mother struggled against, but never fully escaped, the legacies of abuse, alcoholism, poverty and trauma. How his grandparents, 'dirt poor and in love', gave everything for their children to chase the American dream. How Vance beat the odds to graduate from Yale Law School. And how America came to abandon and then condescend to its white working classes, until they reached breaking point.

THE#1NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER IS NOWA MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD AND STARRING AMY ADAMS, GLENN CLOSE, AND GABRIEL BASSO"You will not read a more important book about America this year."The Economist "A riveting book."The Wall Street Journal"Essential reading."David Brooks,New York TimesHillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisisthat of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more thanforty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.s grandparents were dirt poor and in love, and moved north from Kentuckys Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life,neverfully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

The research project leading to this book was initiated in the fall of 1979 when the American Council of Life Insurance (ACLI) contacted Dan McGill, chairman of the Wharton School Insurance Department, about conducting a study on risk classification in life insurance. The ACLI was concerned about legislative and judicial activity in this area and its potential effects on the life insurance industry. A meeting was held at the ACLI offices in Washington, D.C., between several members of the ACLI staff and Dan McGill and David Cummins representing the Wharton School insurance department. An agreement was reached that a study would be conducted at Wharton dealing with issues in risk classification. Although the staff of the ACLI suggested directions the study might take, it was agreed that the design and execution of the study would be solely under the control of the researchers. The researchers also retained unrestricted publication rights in the results of the study. This agreement has been honored by the ACLI during the course of the project.

** #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller **In this essential book written by a rural native and Silicon Valley veteran, Microsofts Chief technology officer tackles one of the most critical issues facing society today: the future of artificial intelligence and how it can be realistically used to promote growth, even in a shifting employment landscape.There are two prevailing stories about AI: for heartland low- and middle-skill workers, a dystopian tale of steadily increasing job destruction; for urban knowledge workers and the professional class, a utopian tale of enhanced productivity and convenience. But there is a third way to look at this technology that will revolutionize the workplace and ultimately the world. Kevin Scott argues that AI has the potential to create abundance and opportunity for everyone and help solve some of our most vexing problems.As the chief technology officer at Microsoft, he is deeply involved in the development of AI applications, yet mindful of their potential impact on workersknowledge he gained firsthand growing up in rural Virginia. Yes, the AI Revolution will radically disrupt economics and employment for everyone for generations to come. But what if leaders prioritized the programming of both future technology and public policy to work together to find solutions ahead of the coming AI epoch? Like public health, the space program, climate change and public education, we need international understanding and collaboration on the future of AI and work. For Scott, the crucial question facing all of us is this: How do we work to ensure that the continued development of AI allows us to keep the American Dream alive?In this thoughtful, informed guide, he offers a clear roadmap to find the answer.