This chapter contains historical and current perspectives on a topic familiar to all, but probably interpreted differently by all, the American dream. The American dream is everything from a common expression that we hear in newspapers, campaign speeches, and in popular culture, to an impetus that drives us to strive to achieve our ideals.

The American dream is best thought of as an evolutionary process, evolving promises and discrepancies, continuous conflicts and renewed promises for increased opportunities and liberties. The dream, as you may see then, is fraught with contradictions—how can one vision fulfill the dreams of all citizens? How can we achieve the dream when we have less than ideal conditions—war, racial tension, gender inequities, economic instability and class differences, differing values? We may argue about what the dream may consist of: does it have to do with money, equality, power, success, or democratic ideals. And we may disagree over who is entitled to the dream and how to achieve it. Does achieving the dream mean a complete realization of one’s dream or of equality of opportunity? These issues, and more, will be considered in this chapter.

The editor has identified two strands of the American dream that compete for our validation—the ideals of opportunity and achievement based on hard work, fairness, and good character (referred to by some as the Protestant work ethic), and the charms of getting rich quick, winning, or at least "keeping ahead of the Joneses." The selections question how Americans may experience increased opportunities for equality and liberty; they survey our sense of national identity and interrogate how technological evolutions allow us to unite the past and the future in the immediate present; and question the value of economic progress for individuals and society at large. In a paraphrase of one of the chapter authors, Langston Hughes, we learn to question "what it means to be American" again.