"A senior editor at Mother Jones dives into the lives of the extremely rich, showing the fascinating, otherworldly realm they inhabit-and the insidious ways this realm harms us all"-- Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies; we dream of the jackpot, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion: to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of...

Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history: Finance has become America's dominant industry, while manufacturing has nearly disappeared. The financial sector has become increasingly criminalized, with widespread fraud going completely unpunished. Federal tax collections are at their lowest level in sixty years, with the wealthy enjoying the greatest tax reductions....

"American higher education is often understood as a vehicle for social advancement. However, the institutions at which students enroll differ widely from one another. Some enjoy tremendous endowment savings and/or collect resources via research, which then offsets the funds that students contribute. Other institutions rely heavily on student tuition payments. These schools may struggle to remain solvent, and their students often bear the lion's share...

Whose fault is homelessness? Thirty years ago the problem exploded as a national crisis, drawing the attention of activists, the media, and policymakers at all levels, yet the homeless population endures to this day, and arguably has grown. In this book the author offers a major reconsideration of homelessness in the U.S., casting a critical eye on how we as a society respond to crises of inequality and stratification. Incorporating local studies...

American higher education is nearly four centuries old. But in the decades after World War II, as government and social support surged and enrollments exploded, the role of colleges and universities in American society changed dramatically. Roger Geiger provides the most complete and in-depth history of this remarkable transformation, taking readers from the GI Bill and the postwar expansion of higher education to the social upheaval of the 1960s...