Falling Behind by Robert Frank Essay -- Falling Behind, Robert Frank

Robert H. Frank’s book Falling Behind is a short, lucid, and compelling account of what is going on with the middle class†(Alexander Kemestrios Ben). That is what one reviewer on Amazon.com commented about Frank’s book Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class. In order to engage readers and support their ideas, most argumentative nonfiction books use statistics, logical reasoning, personal anecdotes, and real-life examples. While all of these strategies such as should make an interesting and compelling argument, the question is not of how interesting the book is, but rather is it or is it not a quality argumentative nonfiction book? Before answering that question, we must first consider what makes a quality argumentative nonfiction book. A quality argumentative nonfiction book should engage readers with entertaining and unique ideas and also have well-explained and simplified ideas that are easy for the audience to understand. By these standard s, Falling Behind is partially a quality argumentative nonfiction book because, although it fully meets the criterion of having entertaining and unique ideas, it only partially meets the criterion of having well-explained and simplified ideas. In addition to being â€Å"the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management,† Robert H. Frank is also â€Å"the co-director of the Paduano Seminar in business ethics at NYU’s Stern School of Business†(â€Å"Faculty and Research†). He earned a â€Å"B.S. in mathematics from Georgia Tech† and â€Å"an M.A. in statistics and a Ph.D. in economics† from the University of California at Berkeley (â€Å"Faculty and Research†). Frank has written and cowritten many books, as well as various... ...zon.com. Amazon, 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. â€Å"Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class.† Goodreads. Goodreads, 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. Finn, Daniel. "Smart for One, Dumb for All." Commonweal 135.5 (2008): 22+. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014 Frank, Robert H. Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class. Berkeley: University of California, 2007. Print. Gross, Daniel. "Thy Neighbor’s Stash." NYTimes.com. Ed. Andrew Rosenthal. New York Times, 5 Aug. 2007. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. â€Å"Herpangina† MedlinePlus. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 3 Feb. 2014. Web. 6 Feb. 2014 "Robert H. Frank." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. Whaley, Mary. "Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class." Booklist 1 July 2007: 15. EBSCO Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.