Declining Fortunes: The Withering of the American Dream

To find out how economic decline and downward mobility have shaped the personal problems, marital conflicts and expectations of postwar baby-boomers, Columbia University anthropologist Newman interviewed some 150 residents of a typical New Jersey suburb. An important, perspicacious look at America's shrinking middle class, her study determines that occupational insecurity, high housing prices and the cost-of-living squeeze affect this generation's most personal decisions--such as whether or when to have children--besides increasing friction between spouses and antagonism toward racial minorities, particularly affluent Asian newcomers. Newman ( Falling from Grace: The Downward Mobility of the Middle Class ) perceives a dichotomy between liberal older boomers who came of age in the 1960s and the more conservative younger boomers beset by frustration, envy and a sense of helplessness. The baby-boom generation, she predicts, could become the most powerful political-interest group in the Clinton era. Major ad/promo; author tour. (May)