Away from the nation's affluent suburbs was another country, one inhabited by the poor, the ill-fed, the ill-housed, and the ill-educated. This was the assertion made by author Michael Harrington in his 1962 book, <em>The Other America: Poverty in the United States.</em> Harrington's book had an impact on the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. President Johnson's "Great Society" plans aimed to address the problems of poverty in America.
The book was a study of poverty in the United States, published in 1962 by Macmillan. It found a small but emerging audience in an America that was developing a greater self-awareness after the struggles of World War II and the Korean War.