America at Risk

The Crisis of Hope, Trust, and Caring

By (author) Robert Perrucci, Carolyn C. Perrucci

Publication date:

15 June 2009

Length of book:

176 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Dimensions:

239x162mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780742563698

In America at Risk: The Crisis of Hope, Trust, and Caring, Robert Perrucci and Carolyn C. Perrucci identify the broad economic and technological changes that have led to the loss of high wage jobs, declining opportunity, and increased income and wealth inequality. These changes have altered the way that Americans think about themselves, their future, and the lives of their children and neighbors. Focusing on the erosion of trust, hope, and caring between and among Americans and their social institutions, the authors confront the challenge by proposing policies that will build hope (through jobs and wages) in order to promote greater trust of institutions and more caring for the less fortunate.

Examining data from the past thirty-year period, Perrucci and Perrucci apply a critical sociological lens to view the dominant economic, political, and cultural institutions that have shaped the main social problems facing Americans. They challenge Americans to act on behalf of their individual and collective interests by becoming informed and involved in developing new solutions to improve their lives.
America at Risk is the culmination of two lifetimes of rigorous research and nuanced thought about the multiplex crises facing the United States today. As Perrucci and Perrucci fit together the jigsaw pieces of the socio-economic devastation we are now facing, a portrait emerges of the policies that set in motion the fast-acting processes that have robbed our society of its economic vitality. In developing this portrait they direct our attention to perhaps the most dire consequence of this decay—the severe erosion of hope, trust, and caring at the ground level, among our ordinary citizens."