Facing up to the American dream : race, class, and the soul of the nation / Jennifer L. Hochschild.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hochschild, Jennifer L., 1950-

Series:

Princeton studies in American politics.

Princeton studies in American politics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Social conditions--1975-.

African Americans.

African Americans--Economic conditions.

Social classes--United States.

Social classes.

United States--Race relations.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (433 p.)

Edition:

With a New preface by the author

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1995.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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. According to Jennifer Hochschild, we have failed to face up to what that dream requires of our society, and yet we possess no other central belief that can save the United States from chaos. In this compassionate but frightening book, Hochschild attributes our national distress to the ways in which whites and African Americans have come to view their own and each other's opportunities. By examining the hopes and fears of whites and especially of blacks of various social classes, Hochschild demonstrates that America's only unifying vision may soon vanish in the face of racial conflict and discontent. Hochschild combines survey data and vivid anecdote to clarify several paradoxes. Since the 1960's white Americans have seen African Americans as having better and better chances to achieve the dream. At the same time middle-class blacks, by now one-third of the African American population, have become increasingly frustrated personally and anxious about the progress of their race. Most poor blacks, however, cling with astonishing strength to the notion that they and their families can succeed--despite their terrible, perhaps worsening, living conditions. Meanwhile, a tiny number of the estranged poor, who have completely given up on the American dream or any other faith, threaten the social fabric of the black community and the very lives of their fellow blacks. Hochschild probes these patterns and gives them historical depth by comparing the experience of today's African Americans to that of white ethnic immigrants at the turn of the century. She concludes by claiming that America's only alternative to the social disaster of intensified racial conflict lies in the inclusiveness, optimism, discipline, and high-mindedness of the American dream at its best.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Tables and Figure

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One. The Philosophical and Empirical Context

Chapter One. What is the American Dream?

Chapter Two. Rich and Poor African Americans

Part Two. The Three Paradoxes

Chapter Three. "What's All the Fuss About?": Blacks' and Whites' Beliefs About the American Dream

Chapter Four. "Succeeding More" and "Under the Spell": Affluent and Poor Blacks' Beliefs about the American Dream

Part Three. Succeeding More and Enjoying it Less

Chapter Five. Beliefs about One's Own Life

Chapter Six. Beliefs about Others

Chapter Seven. Competitive Success and Collective Well-Being

Part Four. Under the Spell of the Great National Suggestion

Chapter Eight. Remaining under the Spell

Chapter Nine. With One Part of Themselves they Actually Believe

Chapter Ten. Distorting the Dream

Chapter Eleven. Breaking the Spell

Chapter Twelve. The Perversity of Race and the Fluidity of Values

Part Five. Race and the American Dream

Chapter Thirteen. Comparing Blacks and White Immigrants

Chapter Fourteen. The Future of the American Dream

Appendix A. Surveys used for Unpublished Tabulations

Appendix B. Supplemental Tables

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [341]-397) and index.

ISBN:

9786612752261

9781400803729

1400803721

9781400803712

1400803713

9781400821730

1400821738

9781282752269

128275226X

9781400812097

1400812097

OCLC:

700688622