Economics · Similar reads
Books like Poverty, by America
The best books like Poverty, by America are Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond is about poverty, inequality, exploitation. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
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Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
Matthew Desmond · History
Evicted is Matthew Desmond's account of eight Milwaukee families — tenants and landlords — living through the American housing crisis at its most basic level: the cycle of eviction.
Shares poverty and inequality with Poverty, by America.
Read the summary → - Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Isabel Wilkerson · Memoir
Isabel Wilkerson's second book proposes a reframing of American racial hierarchy: rather than thinking of racism primarily as prejudice, she argues that the United States has operated as a caste society, with Black Americans at the bottom of a rigidly maintained hierarchy similar in its structure — though different in its specific mechanisms — to the caste systems of India and Nazi Germany.
A kindred economics read.
Read the summary → - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Michelle Alexander · Politics
Michelle Alexander's central argument is stark: the United States has not ended racial caste, it has merely redesigned it.
A kindred economics read.
Read the summary →
- Between the World and Me
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Ta-Nehisi Coates · Memoir
Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to live in a Black body in the United States.
A kindred economics read.
Read the summary → - Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Katherine Boo · History
Behind the Beautiful Forevers is Katherine Boo's account of three years spent in Annawadi, a Mumbai slum built on reclaimed land next to the international airport.
Shares poverty and inequality with Poverty, by America.
Read the summary → - Capital: Volume I
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Karl Marx · Economics
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I, published in 1867, is Karl Marx's systematic analysis of the capitalist mode of production.
Both dig into exploitation.
Read the summary → - The Divide
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Jason Hickel · Economics
The Divide is Jason Hickel's argument that global poverty is not a natural condition that development has failed to fully remedy, but a product of policies — colonial extraction, debt regimes, trade rules, and structural adjustment — that wealthy countries have imposed on poor ones.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - The Rise and Fall of American Growth
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The Rise and Fall of American Growth
Robert J. Gordon · Economics
Robert Gordon's argument is one of the most carefully constructed and most contested in recent economics: that the period from 1870 to 1970 was a singular century of transformative invention, and that we have been living with the deceleration ever since.
Both dig into inequality.
Read the summary → - The Second Machine Age
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Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee · Economics
The Second Machine Age is Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's argument that digital technology has entered a qualitatively new phase — one in which machines can perform cognitive tasks previously reserved for humans, creating economic disruption and opportunity simultaneously.
Both dig into inequality.
Read the summary → - The Tyranny of Experts
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William Easterly · Economics
William Easterly spent years at the World Bank before concluding that international development as practiced by the major institutions is not only ineffective but actively harmful — harmful not primarily because it fails to deliver growth, though it frequently does, but because it suppresses the rights and agency of the people it claims to help.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
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William Easterly · Economics
William Easterly spent two decades as a research economist at the World Bank before writing The White Man's Burden, and that institutional experience gives his critique of the development industry a quality that most outside critiques lack: he knows exactly how the machine works and why it produces what it does.
Both dig into poverty.
Read the summary → - Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
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Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson · Economics
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that the fundamental difference between rich and poor countries is not geography, culture, or bad luck.
Both dig into inequality.
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Books like Poverty, by America: quick answers
What are the best books like Poverty, by America?
The best books like Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond are Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Poverty, by America, such as poverty, inequality, exploitation.
What should I read after Poverty, by America?
A natural next read after Poverty, by America is Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. Shares poverty and inequality with Poverty, by America. Other strong choices are Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
What books are similar to Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond?
Poverty, by America centers on poverty, inequality, exploitation. Books with a similar feel include Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo, Capital: Volume I by Karl Marx — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
