pp. 856-857
Chasing the American Dream: Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes, Mark Robert Rank, Thomas A. Hirschl and Kirk A. Foster
Mark Rank and his colleagues join a long list of authors (truth in advertising: including myself) who have struggled for decades to elucidate the bittersweet meaning and motivational force of the American Dream. The metaphor’s first definer, James Truslow Adams, lauded it in 1931 as the “dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman . . . unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class.” In the same paragraph, he captures the American Dream’s maddeningly Janus-faced quality: although “realized more fully . . . here than anywhere else,” it “has been realized . . . very imperfectly even among ourselves.” Rank, Hirschl, and Foster add two elements to the robust literature on this complex concept: extensive quotations from subjects of qualitative interviews and focus groups and an analysis of individuals’ economic well-being over their lifetimes through life table models derived from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). They also make good use of census data, other scholarship, and some survey data.
Chasing the American Dream is well written, cleanly organized, and generally compelling. It starts with chapters organized around three interviewees who exemplify the themes of passion for th
To continue reading, see options above.
Do Facts Matter? Information and Misinformation in American Politics, Jennifer Hochschild and Katherine Levine Einstein
Acting White? Rethinking Race in Post-Racial America, Devon W. Carbado and Mitu Gulati Reviewed by Jennifer Hochschild
Imagining America in 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together after Bush, Herbert J. Gans Reviewed by Jennifer Hochschild
Pluralism and the Politics of Difference: State, Culture, and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective, Ralph Grillo Reviewed by Jennifer Hochschild
more by this authorJoin the Academy of Political Science and automatically receive Political Science Quarterly.
America at a Crossroads: The 2024 Presidential Election and Its Global Impact
April 24, 2024
Read the Symposium Transcripts
Virtual Issue
Introduction: Black Power and the Civil Rights Agendas of Charles V. Hamilton
Marylena Mantas and Robert Y. Shapiro
Publishing since 1886, PSQ is the most widely read and accessible scholarly journal with distinguished contributors such as: Lisa Anderson, Robert A. Dahl, Samuel P. Huntington, Robert Jervis, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Theda Skocpol, Woodrow Wilson
view additional issuesArticles | Book reviews
The Academy of Political Science, promotes objective, scholarly analyses of political, social, and economic issues. Through its conferences and publications APS provides analysis and insight into both domestic and foreign policy issues.
With neither an ideological nor a partisan bias, PSQ looks at facts and analyzes data objectively to help readers understand what is really going on in national and world affairs.