Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse

Now a Washington Post Bestseller.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump proclaimed, “The American Dream is dead,” a message that resonated across the country. Washington Examiner editor Timothy Carney traveled Middle America, pored over county-level maps and data, and sorted through sociological studies, and had a startling revelation: Donald Trump is right, but the death of the American Dream is a social phenomenon, not an economic one.

In some parts of the United States, li...