What is the American middle class? What does it want? In search of these answers The Good Life tackles the assumptions Americans make and have made about their own cultureabout the meaning of equality, success, personal and national security, acceptable ways of dressing and loving and raising children, and, most important, individual freedom. Loren Baritz, a noted observer of American society, leads us to discover not only what Americans are after, but what they usually get in the end. Revealing the realities, the illusions, and the myths of the American middle class, The Good Life makes an exceptional contribution to the understanding of the American way of life. Its broad, incisive, scholarly commentary is sure to arouse controversy and debate.