Remembering American socialist writer Michael Harrington's influential book " The Other America " ( 1962 )

For the 1967–1968 series of speeches of the same name by Martin Luther King, Jr., see The Other America (speech). The Other America First edition Author Michael Harrington Language English Publisher The Macmillan Company Publication date March 1962 Media type Print (hardcover, paperback) Pages 191 Part of a series on Socialism in the United States Ideologies History Activists Commentators Intellectuals Politicians Parties Organizations Media Literature Looking Backward (1888)Voluntary Socialism (1896)The Jungle (1906)Why Socialism? (1949)The Other America (1962)Monopoly Capital (1966)Revolutionary Suicide (1973)A People's History of the United States (1980)Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat (1983) Related topics icon Socialism portal flag United States portal vte The Other America: Poverty in the United States is a 1962 book by socialist writer Michael Harrington on the dire living conditions of the American poor. It was a muckraking-style exposé which spotlighted the entrenched poverty of 40–50 million people in a country that was being touted as "the affluent society".[1] The Other America became a publishing phenomenon after Dwight Macdonald gave it a laudatory review in The New Yorker in January 1963. His review reportedly prompted President Kennedy to read the book, and then to propose anti-poverty legislation later in 1963.[2] The book was also said to have been a catalyst for the Johnson administration's war on poverty program.[3] Harrington would go on to write over a dozen more works such as The Accidental Century (1965), Toward a Democratic Left (1968), and Socialism (1972), but none was as impactful as The Other America, which was listed by TIME magazine as one of the 10 most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.[4]