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“With the even-handed incisiveness that has made him one of the country’s most-respected voices on economics, David Leonhardt illuminates the inside history of the players and missteps that have stolen so many Americans’ futures.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • ONE OF THE ATLANTIC’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Two decades into the twenty-first century, the stagnation of living standards has become the defining trend of American life. Life expectancy has declined, economic inequality has soared, and, after some progress, the Black-white wage gap is once again as large as it was in the 1950s. How did this happen in the world’s most powerful country? And what happened to the “American dream”—the promise of a happier, healthier, more prosperous future—which was once such an inextricable part of our national identity?
Drawing on decades of writing about the economy for The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer David Leonhardt examines the past century of American history, from the Great Depression to today’s Great Stagnation, in search of an answer.
To make sense of the rise and subsequent fall of the American dream, Leonhardt tells the story of the modern American economy as an ongoing battle between two competing forms of capitalism: one that envisions prosperity for most, and one that serves the individual and favors the wealthy. In vivid prose, Ours Was the Shining Future traces how democratic capitalism flourished to make the American dream possible, until the latter decades of the twentieth century when, bit by bit, the dream was corrupted to serve only the privileged few.
Ours Was the Shining Future is a sweeping narrative full of innovation and grit, human drama and hope. Featuring the trailblazing figures who helped shape the American dream—Frances Perkins, Paul Hoffman, Cesar Chavez, Robert Kennedy, A. Philip Randolph, Grace Hopper, and more—this engaging history reveals the power of grassroots democratic movements from across the political spectrum. And though the American dream feels lost to us now, Leonhardt shows how Americans—if they commit themselves to transforming the economy, as they did in the past—have the power to revive the dream once more.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 24, 2023 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780679644859
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780679644859
- File size: 21262 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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May 1, 2023
It's "the American Dream": anyone can do well, and anyone can do better. But the dream has corroded in the 21st century as life expectancy falls, living standards flatten, income inequality soars, and the Black-white wage gap endures. A Pulitzer Prize--winning New York Times journalist who specializes in the economy, Leonhardt explains why by considering corporate culture, government investments, and the political power of grass-roots movements over the last decades. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2023 Library Journal
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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August 14, 2023
A widely shared post-WWII prosperity collapsed thanks to the right’s championing of corporate greed and the left’s abandonment of the working class, according to this sweeping history of the American economy. New York Times journalist Leonhardt (Here’s the Deal) spotlights economic changes, begun in response to the Great Depression, that made the economy more abundant and fair: New Deal labor laws bolstered unions, a public-spirited business culture cooperated with labor and government, and government subsidies made home-ownership and college attendance affordable. Things changed in the 1970s, Leonhardt contends: torpid labor unions stopped organizing new workers, right-wing intellectuals propagandized a laissez-faire business culture that was hostile to unions and government regulation, and the Democratic Party turned toward liberal social issues that appealed to college-educated professionals and away from blue-collar economic issues. The result, he argues, is a modern America steeped in economic stagnation and inequality. Leonhardt’s narrative of decline is broadly familiar, but he makes it fresh with trenchant quantitative analysis and an unusually sharp account of the left’s culpability. (He critiques the Democrats’ shift from immigration skepticism to an embrace of immigration despite its unpopularity among working-class citizens whose wages it suppresses.) The result is a searching diagnosis of America’s socioeconomic malaise that skewers elites of every stripe. -
September 15, 2023
A senior writer at the New York Times argues that lack of investment in the next generation is keeping Americans from attaining the so-called American dream. As Leonhardt reports in this well-researched, thoughtful work, the phrase "American Dream," coined during the Great Depression, was once meaningful to many poor, struggling, and immigrant American families, but now it's often used "ironically or bitterly." Using a combination of personal stories and statistics, the author demonstrates that "a shining future" in the form of better educational prospects, jobs with livable wages, and greater health and material well-being than one's parents enjoyed was very much in reach for many Americans by the mid-20th century. For example, Leonhardt learned from a longitudinal study that tracked progress for Americans in terms of tax rates that an astounding 92% of children born in 1940 grew up to have higher household income than their parents. Until the 1980s, quality of life improved dramatically in terms of physical health, declines in inequality, rising incomes, and material benefits, and the bounty was shared relatively broadly. However, in the last three to four decades, inequality has widened. "The result," writes the author, "is stagnation in nearly every reliable measure of well-being." He examines trends in power, business culture, and investment, arguing that the "rough-and-tumble capitalism" under recent Republican administrations has run roughshod over "democratic capitalism," which "describes a system in which the government recognizes its crucial role in guiding the economy." Leonhardt illustrates his argument through the work of influential Americans across the ideological spectrum, from Frances Perkins to Dwight Eisenhower and Robert Bork. His economics-heavy overview considers factors such as the decline of labor unions, split within left-leaning political circles, embrace of law and order, rise of interest groups, and decline in investment in education, among others. Excellent, accessible overview of socioeconomic trends over the last decades and what they bode for the future.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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