Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010

In 'Coming Apart,' Charles Murray presents a rigorous, data-driven examination of a silent revolution in American society: the dramatic cultural divergence of white Americans into a new upper class and a new lower class since 1960. By deliberately focusing on white citizens, Murray seeks to isolate class dynamics from the confounding variable of race, arguing that the trends he uncovers represent a fundamental national transformation that transcends ethnic lines.

Drawing on five decades of social and economic statistics, the book meticulously charts the behavioral secession of the elite. This class, defined by advanced education and professional success, has increasingly retreated into homogeneous geographic and social enclaves, from specific ZIP codes to selective institutions. Parallel to this, Murray documents the unraveling of the foundational institutions of life—marriage, industriousness, religiosity, and community—within the new lower class, creating a crisis of social capital and personal agency.

The work is structured as a forensic social study, first defining its fictional archetypal towns of Belmont (the elite) and Fishtown (the working class), then measuring the growing chasm between them across four key virtues. It argues that economic inequality is a symptom, not the cause; the core rupture is one of values and daily life. The elite, though often living virtuously, has ceased to affirm these virtues as public goods, adopting a ethos of nonjudgmentalism that abandons a common cultural project.

Murray’s ultimate thesis is that this divergence poses an existential threat to the American project of e pluribus unum. The book is aimed at policymakers, sociologists, and any reader seeking to understand the underlying fractures of 21st-century America, serving as a provocative and essential framework for debates about community, privilege, and national identity.

The reviews reflect a deeply polarized readership, bifurcated along predictable ideological lines. Supporters praise the book's data-heavy approach and its prescient diagnosis of cultural fractures that explain contemporary politics, often citing its intellectual courage. Detractors vehemently criticize its methodology, perceived ideological framing, and the choice to isolate white America, dismissing it as a polemic dressed in social science. The consensus, even among critics, acknowledges its significant influence in shaping discussions of class and populism.