Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation

(Paperback, Revised edition)

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The ideology of the American dream - the faith that an individual can attain success and virtue through strenuous effort - is the very soul of the American nation. This book talks about America's racial conflicts, and claims that the alternative lies in the inclusiveness, optimism, discipline, and high-mindedness of the American dream at its best.

Reviews

Winner of the 1996 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Sociology and Anthropology, Association of American Publishers Winner of the 2000 David Easton Award, American Political Science Association "Jennifer Hochschild bravely tries to disassemble the central elements that are bound up in that vague but still politically and ideologically potent thing, 'the American dream.' ... She wants to iron out the defects of the dream rather than to overturn it, and she feels the good health of our society depends not only on belief in the American dream but on its realization, and in particular on repairing its central failure, which is the inability of some many black Americans to participate in what it promises... [T]here is a division between the way American blacks and American whites see our great racial problem, and it is very unsettling that this division is so great... "--Nathan Glazer, The New Republic "Drawing on a rich lode of polling data, policy studies and popular journalism, Hochschild probes the essential questions suggested by this book's title... Without new politics to alleviate race and class injustice, she warns, we face abandonment of the dream, perhaps leading to a formalization of American hierarchy and a separatist black nationalism."--Publishers Weekly "Hochschild feels the good health of our society depends not only on belief in the American dream but on its realization, and in particular on repairing its central failure, which is the inability of so many black Americans to participate in what it pro mises."--Nathan Glazer, The New Republic "At the center of U.S. ideology rests the promise that all Americans have a reasonable chance at success, however defined; Hochschild demonstrates how that promise now faces severe challenge from real and perceived barriers of race and class... Overall, she shows that shared disaffections and hardening black and white views of each other threaten to rend the nation's social fabric. Her work demands thoughtful reading and earnest discussion."--Library Journal "A major study of current public opinion that offers some grounds for hoping that racial equality and harmony can be achieved on the basis of a shared commitment to a set of traditional American values."--George M. Fredrickson, The New York Review of Books "An analysis that is tragic, and deeply revealing."--David Chappell, In These Times "Hochschild looks at [the American dream] in regard to race and worries, as a result of her findings, that [it] is in trouble... But if the American dream is in trouble, Hochschild sees no real alternative to it as a motivating national belief."--Bettina Drew, Chicago Tribune "... Provides a clearer understanding of the racial and class problems that help fragment the U.S."--Choice "Hochschild examines questions of equality and opportunity through the lens of the American dream [giving us] a clearer understanding of the rage that even many successful blacks feel."--Ellen K. Coughlin, The Chronicle of Higher Education "Hochschild looks at [the American dream] in regard to race and worries, as a result of her findings, that [it] is in trouble... But if the American dream is in trouble, Hochschild sees no real alternative to it as a motivating national belief."--Bettina Drew, Chicago Tribune "[This] work demands thoughtful reading and earnest discussion."--Library Journal

Author Bio

Jennifer L. Hochschild is Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Among her other works are The New American Dilemma: Liberal Democracy and School Desegregation and What's Fair: American Beliefs about Distributive Justice.