{"product_id":"book-hbb3","title":"Bread and Circus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA powerful collection of autobiographical poems from Yale Young Poets Award Winner and Philadelphia's poet laureate  about the economics of class and its failures for those rendered invisible by it\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs a former student of economics, Airea D. Matthews was fascinated and disturbed by eighteenth-century Scottish economist Adam Smith and his magnum opus \u003cem\u003eThe Wealth of Nations.\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eBread and Circus\u003c\/em\u003e is a direct challenge to Smith's theory of the invisible hand, which claims self-interest is the key to optimal economic outcomes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBy juxtaposing redacted texts by Smith and the French Marxist Guy Debord with autobiographical prose and poems, \u003cem\u003eBread and Circus\u003c\/em\u003e demonstrates that self-interest fails when people become commodities themselves and shows how the most vulnerable-including the author and her family-have been impacted by that failure\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e A layered collection to be read and reread, with poems that range from tragic to humorous, in forms as varied and nuanced as the ideas the book considers, this book\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eexplores the area in which theory and reality meet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBread and Circus \u003c\/em\u003eis a brilliant intellectual and artistic contribution to an ongoing conversation about American inequality, for fans of Elizabeth Alexander, Natalie Diaz, Eve Ewing, and Gregory Pardlo.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster Audio","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49346638348592,"sku":"BDhbb3","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio CD","offer_id":49346638381360,"sku":"10hbb3","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/hbb3-Square-cover.jpg?v=1773708232","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-hbb3","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}