Matthew Desmond's (HF '06) Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City quickly made Desmond one of America’s most important thinkers and activists. Desmond’s ethnographic work with families struggling to pay rent and the abusive landlords taking advantage of them during the 2008 financial crisis created an accessible exposé of the ways our economic system punishes poverty.

His next book, Poverty, By America, broadens the scope of his research, demonstrating how wealthy Americans keep poor people poor. A professor at Princeton University, Desmond presents his masterful research and analysis with compassion and moral urgency, as he asks us to help end poverty and bring the American collective closer to freedom and equality.

Photo by Barron Bixler