Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character

Claude S. Fischer is professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of many books, including Century of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years and America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

"Readable and entertaining.... [A] formidable achievement." (Financial Times) "A thoughtful assessment of the patterns of American life over the course of the past several centuries.... All in all, it is a lively and intriguing effort to understand the most important elements of American life." (Times Higher Education) "His measured but upbeat view of the evolving American experience will disappoint the hell-in-a-handbasket crowd.... The result is a shrewd, generous, convincing interpretation of American life." (Publishers Weekly, starred review) "Brave and ambitious.... [Fischer's] book will take its place in a distinguished scholarly tradition that historians have all but abandoned for nearly half a century." (David M. Kennedy, Boston Review) "Fischer has done scholars and lay readers alike an enormous service.... Made in America is exactly the sort of grand and controversial narrative, exactly the sort of bold test of old assumptions, that is needed to keep the study of American history alive and honest." (New Republic) "The book is a sociologist's take on American social history, a distillation of Fischer's vast reading.... He writes not only for his fellow academics but also for the general literate public." (Daniel Walker Howe, Wilson Quarterly, Top Ten Books of 2010)"