In 1831 a 26-year-old French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville
came to America ostensibly to study the young nation's prison
system. But fueled with a spirit of exploration, he found himself
wandering around the untamed land and fairly new republic
compulsively interviewing people to get a feel of the pulse of the
country. His prescient and enthralling findings, published in the
seminal work DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, surmised that "equality of
opportunity" for citizens defined our national character, and that
it is a "pursuit of wealth" that drove Americans more than such
esoteric concepts as freedom and liberty.

More than 165 years later, journalist Cohen decided to retrace
Tocqueville's footsteps on roughly the same route to see what of
the Frenchman's findings still stood, and what had irrevocably
changed. Cohen charted the same course from New York to Flint,
Michigan, down the Ohio Valley, through the Old South and finally
to Washington, DC. He also added a stop in Silicon Valley, which
did not exist in Tocqueville's time but whose existence as the
computer/Internet epicenter qualified it as a "new frontier."

What results is a book of fascinating insight told in an easy,
conversational tone that rarely becomes textbook-dry or overtly
lecturing. "The American Dream is the electricity of the nation,"
he writes. "Its current moves everywhere." Unlike Tocqueville, who
basically only encountered the ruling class of white, middle-aged
male landowners and the upper class, Cohen corners everyone from
casino shuttle bus drivers, evangelical preachers, and teenage moms
to prison guards, Washington lobbyists, and high-powered real
estate brokers. It's not too soon before the main difference
between Tocqueville and Cohen drops with the subtlety of one of
those cartoon ACME anvils: that the economic gap between the haves
and have-nots has widened to where full-time minimum wage workers
cannot support themselves (much less a family). On the flip side,
there are dot.com entrepreneurs disappointed they "only" have a
couple of million in the bank.

Cohen also expertly touches on the place of race in today's
American society, and our preference for "efficiency over
aesthetics," --- hence the rise of the chain hotel, fast food
restaurant, and discount department store. Some of his most
intriguing observations tackle religion in American, which even
Tocqueville noted for its fervency and proliferation unlike that of
any European country. More than one religious leader insists that
what the poor really need is conversion to Jesus and daily Bible
readings more than a hot meal or decent clothing (despite that fact
that many living in poverty are already devout). It is a tip to
Cohen's training as a journalist that he allows interview subjects
to make thematic points on their own without Cohen having to put it
in prose.

In the end, Cohen surmises that Tocqueville --- while making a
number of far-reaching observations --- might not even recognize,
much less comprehend, the America of today. For every Kemmons
Wilson (the spry 87-year-old founder of Holiday Inn) that makes for
perfect Horatio Alger rags-to-riches copy, there are many more
stories of those who may never reach their own "American Dream" no
matter how much effort or faith they put into it.