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Third World America:

How Our Politicians are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
Front Cover
6 Reviews
Broadway Paperbacks, Aug 30, 2011 - Political Science - 276 pages
It’s not an exaggeration to say that middle-class Americans are an endangered species and that the American Dream of a secure, comfortable standard of living has become as outdated as an Edsel with an eight-track player.  That the United States of America is in danger of becoming a third world nation.
 
The evidence is all around us:
 
Our industrial base is vanishing, taking with it the kind of jobs that have formed the backbone of our economy for more than a century; our education system is in shambles, making it harder for tomorrow’s workforce to acquire the information and training it needs to land good twenty-first century jobs; our infrastructure—our roads, our bridges, our sewage and water, our transportation and electrical systems—is crumbling; our economic system has been reduced to recurring episodes of Corporations Gone Wild; our political system is broken, in thrall to a small financial elite using the power of the checkbook to control both parties.
 
And America’s middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation – that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did.
 
It’s the dark flipside of the American Dream – an American Nightmare of our own making.
 
Arianna Huffington, who, with the must-read Huffington Post, has her finger on the pulse of America, unflinchingly tracks the gradual demise of America as an industrial, political, and economic leader.  In the vein of her fiery bestseller Pigs at the Trough, Third World America points fingers, names names, and details who’s killing the American Dream.
 
Finally, calling on the can-do attitude that is part of America’s DNA, Huffington shows precisely what we need to do to stop our freefall and keep America from turning into a third world nation.
 
Third World America is a must-read for anyone disturbed by our country’s steady descent from 20th century superpower to backwater banana republic.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Review: Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream

User Review  - Philip Thomas - Goodreads

This was a decent book with a look at the economic conditions that effect social class, and the anchors that prevent the majority from rising to a better condition. I wish the data was more thorough ... Read full review

Review: Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream

User Review  - Jeroen - Goodreads

Initially, the idea of this book appealed to me and I guess the basic premise of the book is correct: America is crumbling, inequality is rising and the US needs a serious change of course if it wants ... Read full review

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About the author (2011)

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON is the cofounder and editor in chief of the Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and the author of thirteen books. She is also the cohost of Left, Right & Center, public radio's popular political roundtable program. She was named to the Time 100, Time magazine's list of the world's one hundred most influential people, and to the Financial Times's list of fifty people who shaped the decade. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was sixteen and graduated from Cambridge University with an MA in economics.


From the Hardcover edition.

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