Published in 2020, PROMISED LAND by David Stebenne chronicles "How the Rise of the Middle Class Transformed America, 1929-1968." Stebenne, a lawyer and Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University, documents change across those four decades through an historical lens so as to tell "the story of how and why that transformation [to a predominately middle-class nation] came about, what life was like during the heyday of the middle class, and why, beginning in the later 1960s, that process slowed down and eventually stopped." He discusses a "state of mind" and how the middle class "prized a sense of belonging, taking pride in their families, neighborhoods, communities, and country"” which echoes the work of other scholars such as Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, Our Children or, perhaps, even Upswing. In addition to economic characteristics, Stebenne points to demographic (race and gender), geographic, and cultural (increase in driving, radio, television, etc.) factors in a readily accessible way. Of help to interested researchers (especially AP US students), roughly twenty percent of PROMISED LAND is devoted to notes and bibliographic references.

I loved, loved, loved this book. It's incredibly informative, explaining how the forty years between the 1920's and 1960' created the middle class through better labor laws, unions, liberal economic policy, the New Deal, and circumstances after the depression and WWII, as well as the lifestyle and behavior across this group that shaped American history forever. It's filled with facts but reads like an engrossing novel.

David Stebenne (2020). Promised land. How the rise of the middle class transformed America, 1929-1968. Simon & Schuster

I was happy to receive a review copy of the book believing that the exploration of social class would consider economic history, the politics of the various decades noted in the title, a bit of sociology on the construct of social class and, perhaps, more. Instead, the author’s focus was directed mainly towards the politics of the roughly forty-year period. Of course, that period was full of dramatic and life changing events. The years of the Depression, World War II, and a post-war period that included the social transformation of the 1950s and 1960s were described with many interesting examples of tensions within society, drama within the political arena (at least at the federal level), and the slowly emerging political awareness of the priorities of the middle class within America. The author draws not only from the political science literature but what might be accurately labeled pop history. Thus, the reader encounters reference to cookbooks, music, movies and more to illustrate the various ways in which middle class values were echoed and promoted by business and industry. Compelling reading? For those familiar with American history 1929-1968, you have read other accounts that probed more deeply into issues. For those less familiar, the text is worth a look for its relatively concise coverage of an important period of American history.