Overthrowing the Queen

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Tom Mould's Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America is a remarkable work, destined to be a folklore classic. Moving confidently among politics, history, and sociology, never losing sight of the power of narrative and the influence of tradition, Mould demonstrates the complex origins and effects of accounts of governmental support. Fair-minded and balanced, Mould recognizes that no one side holds the truth, but that recipients, providers, and citizens connect personal stories, legends, rumors, and ideology into a set of justice claims. The question of who deserves what is not simply a matter of ideology, but of belief in stories.

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~—Gary Alan Fine, co-author of Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America

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Is there common sense in a polarized America? Yes and no. This magisterial study uncovers the processes by which stereotyping narratives cross social divides and override facts, shaping public understandings of poverty that stigmatize recipients of government aid programs. Connecting the dots among "welfare queen" legends, recipient experiences, policy contradictions, campaign rhetoric, online debate, and neighborly conversations, Tom Mould shows how the postwar welfare state became an object of generalized suspicion and how the American Dream was narrowed into an ideal of solitary achievement that ultimately none of us can attain. His assessment of strategies for fighting false beliefs is both constructive and sobering.

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~—Dorothy Noyes, author of Humble Theory: Folklore's Grasp on Social Life

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Overthrowing the Queen is smart and captivating, beautifully researched, well argued, superbly documented, and well written. The volume contrasts legend, personal experience narrative, social media, politics, statistics, propaganda, and policy related to issues of welfare use, teasing apart the articulated experiences, interpretations, fears, and goals of both those who suspect abuse of the welfare system and those who have lived or worked within it. This book will appeal not only to folklorists, anthropologists, and sociologists, but also to political scientists, economists, social workers, and policy wonks, shaping the conversation for decades to come.

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~—Diane Goldstein, author of Once Upon a Virus: Aids Legends and Vernacular Risk Perception

"Mould brilliantly captures the importance of prejudices towards welfare and how these social misrepresentations can shape current policies on public assistance."

~Eric Gagnon Poulin, Ethic and Racial Studies