A self-proclaimed 'myth buster by trade', over her long-ranging career as a journalist and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich has delved with devastating wit and insight into the social and political fabric of America. Had I Known gathers together Ehrenreich's most significant articles and excerpts from the last four decades - some of which became the starting point for her bestselling books - from her award-winning article 'Welcome to Cancerland', published shortly after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, to her groundbreaking investigative journalism in 'Nickel and Dimed', which explored living in America on the minimum wage. Issues she identified as far back as the 80s and 90s such as work poverty, rising inequality, the gender divide and medicalised health care, are top of the social and political agenda today. Written with remarkable tenderness, humour and incisiveness, Ehrenreich's describes an America of struggle, inequality, racial bias and injustice. Her extraordinarily prescient and relevant perspective announces her as one of most significant thinkers of our day.

Polemical and passionate, acerbic but introspective, these essays are unsettlingly prescient. Ehrenreich has always been able to see which way the wind is blowing, foreseeing much of the world as we see it today -- Alastair Mabbott * Herald *

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of over twenty books, including the bestselling Smile or Die and Nickel and Dimed. She has written for Time, Harper's, the New York Times Magazine and various British newspapers including The Times and the Guardian. She lives in Virginia, USA.