... is billed as a collection of essays from the past four decades, but the Ehrenreich in these pages will be mostly familiar to the million-plus readers of Nickel and Dimed, which began as an article for Harper’s Magazine that is reprinted here.

Taking her early 1980s writing as its starting point, Ehrenreich’s Had I Known, published March 2020 by Twelve Books, draws upon her considerable register of previously published work and places these writings in fresh orbit.

From the wage gap and exploitation of workers to gender inequality and second-wave feminism, Ehrenreich digs deep in her investigations into the topics that capture the collective fancy as well as those that rarely register in the social consciousness.

In a sense, Ehrenreich’s work has always been mournful, mostly for the traditions of social justice and collective organizing so ruthlessly attacked since the Ronald Reagan administration. The author stayed prolific even after her hardcover success, and this collection is sprawling.

Activist and journalist Ehrenreich...addresses numerous hot-button issues in this argumentative and passionate collection.