Full Description
What do we mean by the American Dream? Can we define it? Or does any discussion of the phrase end inconclusively, the solid turned liquid - like ice melting? Do we know whether the American Dream motivates and inspires or, alternately, obscures and deceives? The Routledge Handbook on the American Dream offers distinctive, authoritative, original essays by well-known scholars that address the social, economic, historical, philosophic, legal, and cultural dimensions of the American Dream for the twenty-first century. The American Dream, first discussed and defined in print by James Truslow Adams' The Epic of America (1931), has become nearly synonymous with being American. Adams' definition, although known to scholars, is often lost in our ubiquitous use of the term. When used today, the iconic phrase seems to encapsulate every fashion, fad, trend, association, or image the user identifies with the United States or American life. The American Dream's ubiquity, though, argues eloquently for a deeper under-standing of its heritage, its implications, and its impact—to be found in this first research handbook ever published on the topic.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Epigraphs
Preface
Introduction: What is the American Dream?
Economic Success and Upward Economic Mobility and the American Dream
Racial Capitalism and (Im)Mobility: Asian Americans in the Contemporary Labor Market
Gendered Street Capitalism and the Violence of the American Dream
The Mirage of Meritocracy and the Morality of Grace
Hegemony and Interpellation: The Ideological Functions of the American Dream
Paradise for Whom? Rural Inequality and the Elusive American Dream
Is the Nordic Model more compatible with the American Dream than present-day United States?
Contemporary Issues in American Dream Studies
The Random Factor: Chance, Luck, and the American Dream
The Feminist American Dream
Migration and the Immigrant American Dream
Migration and the American Dream
Post-1965 Immigrants, African Americans and the Limits of the American Dream
Crime and the American Dream in a Nation of Immigrants
Marginalized Americans and the American Dream
Poor But Still Dreaming
The American Dream, Latinx and the US Mass Media in the 21st Century
Queer Youth and the American Dream
The American Dream Goes Global?
Exporting the American Dream: Global Implications
The Chinese Dream, the Wuhan Nightmare, and COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory
Why Is There No European Dream?
Sustainability and the American Dream
Using Cargo Cult Movements to Explain the Persistent Appeal of the American Dream
Contributor Bios
Index
