Amazon.com description: Product Description: Reading 'The People of the Abyss' by Jack London is like reading about the structure of our current society--except 100 years ago. London goes undercover to document the lives and survival skills of residents in the abominable East Side slum of London, England. Making every effort to disguise himself, he dons old clothing, consumes the same foods and frequents the same places as the disparately poor and downtrodden inhabitants of the immense, densely populated, ghetto. Throughout his courageous experiment he exposed himself to disease, extreme hardship and danger while gathering amazing statistics regarding food, wages, mortality rates and more. This was a different approach for Jack London, who was generally known for his turn of the century survival fiction. Here London delves into investigative journalism, detailing the real world survival challenges of the poor and hopeless in 1900's East End London. The Language may be dated, but the accounts of the hardships and coping strategies of industrial society's peasants are more than relevant. The book offers a glimpse of pre-World War I European economy (East End conditions were abounding throughout most of Europe) and social hierarchy, ending with a damning indictment of civilization's "management." Working people of London's day had significantly less means than the wealthy, and never enough to maintain what Americans today would even consider a "poverty level" existence, which leads to the two driving points of the book: that things are not as bad as we make them out to be, and that Americans had better improve things before things get as bad as pretend they are. Compared to what was endured by "People of the Abyss," living on Ramen noodles or even tomato soup would be beautiful dream...