THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON THE AMERICAN DREAM

<p>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? <i>The Routledge Handbook on the American Dream </i>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’s <i>The Epic of America </i>(1931), has become nearly synonymous with being American. Adams’s 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 understanding of its heritage, its implications, and its impact—to be found in this first research handbook ever published on the topic.</p> <p><em>Acknowledgements<br>Epigraphs <br>Preface</em> </p><p>Introduction: What is the American Dream? <br>Economic Success and Upward Economic Mobility and the American Dream<br>Racial Capitalism and (Im)Mobility: Asian Americans in the Contemporary Labor Market<br>Gendered Street Capitalism and the Violence of the American Dream<br>The Mirage of Meritocracy and the Morality of Grace<br>Hegemony and Interpellation: The Ideological Functions of the American Dream<br>Paradise for Whom? Rural Inequality and the Elusive American Dream<br>Is the Nordic Model more compatible with the American Dream than present-day United States?<br>Contemporary Issues in American Dream Studies<br>The Random Factor: Chance, Luck, and the American Dream<br>The Feminist American Dream<br>Migration and the Immigrant American Dream<br>Migration and the American Dream<br>Post-1965 Immigrants, African Americans and the Limits of the American Dream<br>Crime and the American Dream in a Nation of Immigrants<br>Marginalized Americans and the American Dream<br>Poor But Still Dreaming<br>The American Dream, Latinx and the US Mass Media in the 21st Century <br>Queer Youth and the American Dream <br>The American Dream Goes Global?<br>Exporting the American Dream: Global Implications<br>The Chinese Dream, the Wuhan Nightmare, and COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory<br>Why Is There No European Dream?<br>Sustainability and the American Dream<br>Using Cargo Cult Movements to Explain the Persistent Appeal of the American Dream<br> <br><em>Contributor Bios<br>Index</em> </p>