usa
I just finished reading John Dos Passos' USA trilogy. (The 42nd Parallel, Nineteen Nineteen, and The Big Money.) I first read these for a history class in college and fell in love with them. I figured it was about time to reread them.

They're a mixture of contemporary headlines, stream of consciousness autobiography, biographies of contemporary public figures, and the stories of several characters as they live from the turn of the century up to the late 20s. The story of the USA is also told by those characters' lives. They go from small town rural kids to sophisticated, trendy urban dwellers playing in the stock market, and their development tells the same story of the country.

I really like these books, but then again I have a thing for the literature of the 20s era. Also, I'm fascinated by the first three(-ish) decades of the 20th century. That time seems to me to have been a fork in the road of American development. Things were bad for lots of people: working conditions were pretty miserable, poverty was rampant, economic recessions were commonplace and bad; and yet, there seems to have been a real sense of optimism among people. People seemed to believe that if everyone just got organized and put their minds and their backs into it, they could make the world a better place. Reading the biography sections of people like Eugene Debs is always inspiring. However, with the New Deal co-opting much of what these people were agitating for in order to take the radical edge and energy off the popular movement and then, World War II, the emphasis seemed to have changed from making the world better for everyone towards everyone getting their own house in the burbs with a white picket fence. I have to admit, I do wonder a bit how things could have turned out differently.

But no matter what you think of my ramblings, the books are worth reading.