Falling from grace : the experience of downward mobility in the American middle class

Originally published in hardcover by The Free Press, 1988.

1 American nightmares. 2 The extent of downward mobility. 3 Rejected managers and the culture of meritocracy. 4 The downwardly mobile family. 5 Brotherhoods of the downwardly mobile. 6 Blue-collar workers and the abandonment of tradition. 7 Middle-class women in trouble. 8 Falling from grace

'in the 1980s millions of people slipped through a loophole in the American dream and became downwardly mobile....How does their fall from grace affect their vision of themselves and their ties to their families: Are they failures or victims? This original and unsettling book draws on 150 in-depth interviews to dreate a devastating portrait of "refugees from the middle class" and to question our deepest assumptions about America's social contract.'

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