In a book that has been raising hackles far and wide, the social critic Thomas Frank
skewers one of the most sacred cows of the go-go ‘90s: the idea that the new free-market
economy is good for everyone.

Frank’s target is market populism -the widely held
belief that markets are a more democratic form of organization than democratically
elected governments. Refuting the idea that billionaire CEOs are looking out for
the interests of the little guy, he argues that the great euphoria of the late nineties
was never as much about the return of good times as it was the giddy triumph of one
America over another. Frank is a latter-day Mencken, as readers of his journal The
Baffler and his book The Conquest of Cool know. With incisive analysis, passionate
advocacy, and razor-sharp wit, he asks where we are headed-and whether we’re going
to like it when we get there.