The Author (Arlie Russell Hochschild)

The author is a highly regarded sociology professor at the University of California-Berkeley who has authored several books on how human emotions provide the foundations for a person's moral and political beliefs. Having written several books on how people manage their emotions at work and acquire "emotional debts" to their family, friends, and community, Strangers in Their Own Land finds her using her skills to decipher why Louisianans vote as they do. Throughout most of the book she listens as Louisianans explain events in their lives, and she uses those events to craft a narrative explaining their marginalization from society.

The author provides only a few details of her own background. The primary example of this would be her recollection, in Chapter 14 that she and her husband took part in Freedom Summer of 1964, when students from northern, often high-ranking universities, traveled to Mississippi...