Over the course of two years, the Washington-based Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist crisscrossed the United States, talking to bankers, gang leaders, schoolteachers, businessmen, farmers-even President Bill Clinton-about the current state of America. The result, a powerful portrait of Americans at a pivotal point in their history, raises tough questions that continue to resonate.

Nationwide, Americans faced the legacy of the Reagan Eighties (disappearing jobs, soaring crime, racial polarization) with immense apprehension and a pervasive skepticism that colored their attitudes about politicians and the political system itself. At the same time, people in all walks of life were eager to take on the challenges of the Nineties. I do not feel that I have been writing the obituary of the American Dream, writes Johnson in the final chapter of Divided We Fall; I believe I have been writing about an interlude in the reclaiming of that Dream.

Indeed, with this brilliant document, Johnson urges and inspires us to join together, face the challenge of change, and take the brave gamble to reclaim the American Dream.