His book, Third Wave Capitalism: How Money, Power, and the Pursuit of Self-Interest Have Imperiled the American Dream (Cornell University Press) was described by Washington Post columnist E.J.
Dionne as "a brilliant take on what ails our society and our politics," and by Arlie Hochschild, author of Strangers in Their Own Land, as "a fascinating 'long look' at America.... Sobering, startling, important―a big-think book.
Born in Philadelphia, Ehrenreich received his bachelor's degree in 1964 from Harvard College, followed by a Ph.D. in cellular biology from Rockefeller University and a second PhD in Clinical Psychology from the New School for Social Research.
Together, John and Barbara Ehrenreich played a leading role in the anti-Vietnam war movement in New York and published several early books and articles, including Long March, Short Spring: The Student Uprising at Home and Abroad (1969),[3] The American Health Empire: Power, Profits and Politics (1970), and The Professional-Managerial Class (1977).
In addition to his books and journalistic writing, Ehrenreich has published numerous articles on social policy and psychology in scholarly and professional journals,[8] including Understanding PTSD: Forgetting Trauma (2003), Managing Stress in Humanitarian Aid Workers (2004); Women in prison: Approaches to understanding the lives of a forgotten population (with S. McQuaide, 1998) and Personality Theory: A Case of Intellectual and Social Isolation?