American Doom Loop: Dispatches from a Troubled Nation, 1980s–2020s

Written by Dale Maharidge

Narrated by Lee Goettl

Americans lived in a different reality in 1980: Vermont was the only state that let residents carry a concealed firearm without a permit. Twenty-four states now allow this-and numerous other gun laws have fallen by the wayside. When police were accused of wrongdoing, the default answer from society's arbiters was: "The police wouldn't lie." Editors steered clear of stories about rape and sexual violence. The word "homeless" wasn't in common use. The fabric of the middle class had not yet begun fraying.

America of the 2020s is living with cultural shapeshifting rooted in the 1980s. American Doom Loop chronicles the first part of that moving picture, then brings the story forward.

As a newspaper journalist, Dale Maharidge had a front-row seat to this decade. He was in the Philippines during the last days of Dictator Ferdinand Marcos, witnessing the US lose a critical piece of its empire dating to the Spanish-American War; he embedded with a group that was a precursor to the Oath Keepers; and he investigated police, who kept trying to get him fired.

Through it all, Maharidge gained an invaluable view of a complicated decade that offers insight into our society today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Apr 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798855548488

Dale Maharidge

For nearly four decades, Dale Maharidge has been one of America's leading chroniclers of poverty. Alongside photographer Michael S. Williamson, his book And Their Children After Them won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1990, revisiting the places and people of Depression-era America, depicted in Walker Evans's and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Also with Williamson, Maharidge produced Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, which Bruce Springsteen has credited as an influence for songs such as Youngstown"" and ""The New Timer.""""