A gripping history of the 40 years since wealth started falling up

By Dan Froomkin

“Who Stole the American Dream? The short answer….is: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wal-Mart. But the longer answer is one heck of a story, told by one of the great journalists of our time. In his sweeping, authoritative examination of the  last four decades of the American economic experience, Smith describes the long, relentless decline of the middle class – a decline that was not by accident, but by design. He dates it back to a private memo – in effect, a political call to arms – issued to the nation’s business leaders in 1971 by Lewis F. Powell, Jr., a corporate attorney soon to become a Supreme Court Justice….Smith’s extraordinary clarity in describing this sometimes obscured narrative arc evidently emerges form his sense of journalistic outrage. he sees a country splitting into two, divided by a vast wealth gap. He sees the social fabric of the nation tearing. He wants to make it better.”

See the entire review here, as first published in the Fall 2012 edition of Nieman Reports.

“Hedrick Smith book seeks roots of US economic inequality”

By Bernard Vaughan, of Reuters

“[Smith’s] account is informed by the lively eye and ear of a journalist, as when he details for example the cascading impact of the 95th Congress in 1978. That session is one he says many political analysts overlook despite being “one of the most pivotal in our modern political history.” Influenced by the rising power of big business lobbying, it was the 95th Congress, Smith says, that made seminal changes in the economy’s structure…”

See the entire review here, as first published on Friday, September 21, 2012

By Steve Winberg, Special for USA Today

“Smith is no newcomer to writing sweeping indictments. His two books about Russia (he served as a New York Times correspondent there) explained a foreign land in mesmerizing detail to English-language readers. His book The Power Game: How Washington Works exposed machinations in the nation’s capital to a large audience. Who Stole the American Dream? includes damaging information from his earlier books, plus lots of new case studies and anecdotes. It is sweeping in scope…”

See the entire review here, as first published on October 14, 2012.