Matthew Desmond, author portrait
© Barron Bixler

Matthew Desmond

Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he joined the Harvard Society of Fellows as a Junior Fellow. He is the author of four books, including Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016), which won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Carnegie Medal, and PEN / John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. The principal investigator of The Eviction Lab, Desmond’s research focuses on poverty in America, city life, housing insecurity, public policy, racial inequality, and ethnography. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award, and the William Julius Wilson Early Career Award. A contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, Desmond was listed in 2016 among the Politico 50, as one of “fifty people across the country who are most influencing the national political debate.”
Poverty, by America
Evicted

Matthew Desmond on How to End Poverty, and His Book POVERTY, BY AMERICA | Inside the Book

How housing is ignored in the poverty discussion | Author Matthew Desmond

Matthew Desmond (author of Evicted) | What I'm Reading

EVICTED by Matthew Desmond | Book Trailer

Books

Poverty, by America
Evicted

Media

Matthew Desmond on How to End Poverty, and His Book POVERTY, BY AMERICA | Inside the Book

How housing is ignored in the poverty discussion | Author Matthew Desmond

Matthew Desmond (author of Evicted) | What I'm Reading

EVICTED by Matthew Desmond | Book Trailer

2025 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2025! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages,

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Videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 19th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST This event

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a “provocative and compelling” (NPR) argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it. Access educator resources for the book at: endpovertyusa.org/#teaching-resources   Chapter 1 The Kind of Problem Poverty Is I

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Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond: Complimentary Slideshow for Classroom Use Now Available

We are pleased to share a new resource for Pulitzer Prize–winning sociologist Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America, out in paperback on March 26, 2024. Click here to access and download an extensive PowerPoint presentation, created to aid and enhance the teaching of the book and easily adaptable to meet educators’ course needs. In this landmark

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unCommon Authors, an Author Video Series: POVERTY, BY AMERICA by Matthew Desmond

                                                                  PRH Education/Common Reads presents: unCommon Authors unCommon Authors is a monthly video series highlighting exceptional and unique authors talking about their books.

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