Since its birth the United States has been proclaimed a classless and unified nation, as typified by the myth of the American melting pot. This book seeks to demonstrate that the reality is very different - it is a country divided along the fault lines of class, race, and ethnic identity. Beginning with a look at social divisions as they existed in the 1930 s, the book investigates the effects of World War II, the Cold War era, the growth of the suburbs, the new frontier and the great society and the fragmentation of Vietnam, concluding with an analysis of the effects of Watergate and the election of Jimmy Carter. The result is a documentation of the change and continuity that characterize four turbulent decades of American life.