
Our Kids
The American Dream in Crisis
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Buy for $19.49
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
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By:
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Robert D. Putnam
A groundbreaking examination of the growing inequality gap from the best-selling author of Bowling Alone: why fewer Americans today have the opportunity for upward mobility.
It's the American dream: get a good education, work hard, buy a house, and achieve prosperity and success. This is the America we believe in - a nation of opportunity, constrained only by ability and effort. But during the last 25 years, we have seen a disturbing "opportunity gap" emerge. Americans have always believed in equality of opportunity, the idea that all kids, regardless of their family background, should have a decent chance to improve their lot in life. Now this central tenet of the American dream seems no longer true or, at the least, much less true than it was. Robert Putnam - about whom The Economist said, "[H]is scholarship is wide-ranging, his intelligence luminous, his tone modest, his prose unpretentious and frequently funny" - offers a personal but also authoritative look at this new American crisis. Putnam begins with his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio. By and large the vast majority of those students - "our kids" - went on to lives better than those of their parents. But their children and grandchildren have had harder lives amid diminishing prospects. Putnam tells the tale of lessening opportunity through poignant life stories of rich and poor kids from cities and suburbs across the country, drawing on a formidable body of research done especially for this book.
Our Kids is a rare combination of individual testimony and rigorous evidence. Putnam provides a disturbing account of the American dream that should initiate a deep examination of the future of our country.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2015 Robert D. Putnam. All rights reserved. (P)2015 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...




















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Good companion to Coming Apart by Charles Murray
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A Must Read for Anyone Who Cares!
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Required reading
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well thought out, wish there were more stats
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Excellent book raised some troubling issues...
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Some have commented that's only if progressives would understand the issues of this book. I agree, because only progressives actually want to improve upon the situation and the issues we have in this country. Others choose to try to maintain the status quo or regress to a time where people had a lot less right and America was more business friendly (i.e. workers have no rights).
A Must Read to Understand the Growing Wealth Gap
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As a book, it is a challenge. Once you see the problem, you cannot unsee the problem. And, the standard solutions typically given by either side of the political spectrum feel paltry and insincere. If we are called to love our brother, we appear to be failing.
Concerning and worthy of action
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Everyone should read this
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Must read for every American parent today.
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A compelling case for action before it's too late.
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