Russell Bank explaines his theory of the American Dream, which includes three distinct versions; the Spanish dream for profit, the El Dorado American Dream, the Ponce De Leon dream of the Fountain of Youth and also the traditional dream of religious freedom. Eventually these dreams became one, our version of the American Dream. This book provides a unique perspective of the American Dream of the past and the future. ( )

Well, I picked up this one for all the wrong reasons. William Carlos Williams’ In The American Grain remains in my mind (ingrained?) as a book that lays bare the very soul of what America means. I thought this might be something like that. But this book is slight in thickness as well as slight of thought. It’s really a throw away. Or an after thought. And why not? It really has its genesis in a French documentary that means to discover America through it movies. And Banks was chosen as a talking head for the film. What has been published here is more or less a glorified transcript of thoughts from the film. Perhaps they were more meaningful interspersed with vintage cinema. Standing alone here though, it’s a hodgepodge of meandering ruminations, none of which probe very deeply. All of which are more fully developed in any good magazine article about who we are, and where we are going. ( )