Books
America: What Went Wrong? First Edition
"Once or twice in a generation, the American people are jolted by a book that helps bring about major change. America: What Went Wrong...is a monumental achievement..a book that is likely to make a difference. Every American voter ought to give it a careful reading." — Chicago Sun-Times
"Barlett and Steele have incisively and vividly defined the problem facing the nation, and proved again that there is an audience for a message that cannot be captured by a sound bite, a photo opportunity or even a bumper sticker." — The New York Times
"This important and profoundly disturbing book should be required reading for voters in the upcoming elections." — Los Angeles Times
"Barlett and Steele tell exactly why economic life has changed from the prosperous 1950s to now, and they propose what can be done to help reinvigorate America and restore the nation's spirit." — Chicago Tribune
"Everyone should read this book because everyone is living it." — Daily Hampshire Gazette, North Hampton, Mass
". . .a sobering, informative and genuinely frightening book. " — Birmingham (Ala.) Post-Herald
"Donald Barlett and James Steele demonstrate once again that it is in journalism and not academia or think tanks that we find people who will tell us what is actually happening to us. And what has been happening is not a pretty story." — Rhode Island Senior Times
"It is easy to see why America: What Went Wrong? is quite simply some of the best American news reporting in years. Barlett and Steele have dissected all the major elements of America's economic and political decline over the past two decades...The authors have done a great service to the public by accumulating all this vital information in such a clear and simple manner."— Boston Phoenix
"Barlett and Steele methodically trace the course of federal laws that have had the effect of impairing our economy and increasing the plight of most Americans. The analysis is easy to follow and the book is must reading for all those who want intelligence and integrity in lawmaking." — Arizona Republic
". . . the most powerful description of the nation's domestic problems I have read since Michael Harrington published The Other America in 1962. . .Harrington's classic volume documented the depth of poverty in the United States. Barlett and Steele indict America's corporate and political leaders for rewriting the rules to favor the wealthy and powerful." — Gazette-Mail, Charleston West Va
"What we have is a 200-plus page book that should be a must-read title . . ." — Wisconsin State Journal
"The book methodically and exhaustively documents the rise of an economic and political system that has gone far to destroy everything productive in the American economy to benefit special interests and make a few money men richer." — Southampton (NY) Press
"For those who want to understand why this country is in the economic mess it's in, (a new) book will provide some straight answers. America: What Went Wrong? ...is a must read for anyone concerned about the sorry state of our country." — Greensboro (NC) News and Record
" . . .an eloquent and carefully researched picture of what many people have come to see as the dismantling of the American middle class." — Amarillo (TX) News-Globe
"George Bush and Bill Clinton should take a day off to read America: What Went Wrong? . . .Then they should tell us how they plan to start making things right." — Boston Globe
"America: What Went Wrong? probably is the most complete and revealing piece of reporting since turn-of-the-century muckrakers shocked the nation with descriptions of inhuman working conditions and big city political machines. . .These two reporters. . .can stand with Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair, crusaders of that earlier era." — Maine Sunday Telegram
"In one of the most important pieces of investigative reporting of the past quarter century, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele have laid it all out in precise, surgical detail — without anesthesia. . .Recitations of statistics can be mind-numbing, but the ones Barlett and Steele have compiled are as riveting as a train wreck." –Daily Times Chronicle, Reading, MA