American Mojo: Lost and Found: Restoring our Middle Class Before the World Blows By - Softcover

Kiernan, Peter D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1681621231 ISBN 13: 9781681621234

Publisher: Turner, 2015

Synopsis

In American Mojo: Lost and Found, Peter D. Kiernan, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, focuses on America’s greatest challenge―and opportunity―restoring the middle class to its full promise and potential.

Our educated, skilled, and motivated middle class was the cornerstone of America’s postwar economic might, but the country’s dynamic core has struggled and changed dramatically through the last three decades. Kiernan’s extensively researched story, told through individual histories, shows how the middle class flourished under unique circumstances following World War II and details how our middle class has been rocked and shaped by events abroad as much as at home. By excluding too many Americans, the middle class we reverently recall was fractured from the beginning.

What emerges through his storytelling is a picture of middle-class decline and opportunity that is fuller, more moving and profound, and ultimately more useful in terms of charting a path forward than other examinations. His unique global perspective is a vital ingredient in charting the way ahead. This new frontier thesis shows that middle-class greatness is again within our grasp―if we take some powerful medicine and seize the global opportunity. America possesses the skills and talent the world needs. Americans must embrace what brought our middle class to prominence in the first place―our American Mojo―before it is too late and other countries steal the march.

All that is at stake is the soul of our nation.

About this title

About the Author

Peter D. Kiernan, award-winning bestselling author, is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and advisor to businesses, nonprofits and government. After a multi-decade Wall Street career, he left in 2000 to pursue venture capital start-ups, nonprofit work and writing. A 25-year Robin Hood Foundation board member and past Chair of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, he has served on the boards of numerous hospitals, colleges, graduate schools, disability and poverty fighting organizations, and charter school initiatives and currently serves on the Al Smith Foundation. A frequent contributor on TV talk shows, radio programs and public speaking forums, Kiernan’s last book, Becoming China’s Bitch won the International Book Award and was a New York Times bestseller. He holds an MBA from Darden and a BA from Williams College and lives in New England with his family.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In twenty years the global middle class will be unrecognizable. Why? Because outside our border lies 80 percent of the world’s purchasing power, 92 percent of the world’s economic growth, and 95 percent of the world’s consumers. And they are hungry for change in a way that should be familiar.
Today, dozens of nations have explicit plans to create their own middle class miracle. A billion more middle class members should emerge in the next decade. What does that surge mean for the restoration and livelihood of the American middle class?
Like we did in the fifties, these countries are short-cutting their way to a dynamic middle class by providing it with conditions to prosper. Meanwhile we drift along, vaguely concerned that our middle class is shrinking, that wages are sideways at best, and that our population is changing right before our eyes.
If we have no plan at all, what does that mean for our prospects?
We still look at middle class problems myopically―as purely domestic affairs. 1955 is dead and gone. This book assumes the missing global perspective ignored by domestic policy ostriches who so often dominate discussion. When it comes to the middle class, all the world’s a stage.

About this edition

• Publisher: Turner
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1681621231
• ISBN 13: 9781681621234
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464