Highly readable, this insightful book paints a disturbing picture of the collapse of the working class and the growth of an upper class that seems to be largely unaware of the other's precarious existence.

Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. Nationally honored as a leading humanist and a renowned scientist, he has written fourteen books and has consulted for the last four US Presidents. His research program, the Saguaro Seminar, is dedicated to fostering civic engagement in America.

This book is an examination of the growing inequality gap in America, from the author of "Bowling Alone." Putnam looks at his high school class of 1959 in Port Clinton, Ohio, and reveals how the vast majority of the students went on.