528 pages Doubleday & Company Publication Date: January 1965 Hardcover ISBN: N.A.

This book deals with an eternally fascinating, usually controversial, and sometimes stirring question: Who are the Americans and what are they really like?

Everybody knows about the Census--in fact, it touches, uniquely, just about everybody in these United States. But few realize the colorful range of wonders it contains (and some experts seem to make a habit of ignoring them). This book affords an examination of such questions as how much Americans make, where they live, what they own, and even the bases of how they think and feel. The authors dig into an almost overwhelming treasure of Census data, and what they discover corrects and establishes a surprising array of old ideas and new impressions. For the Census documents deal with the population "explosion," racial progress, dropouts, unemployment--and, by extention, such themes as individualism, rootlessness, and a broad range of twentieth century problems.

Ben J. Wattenberg is a senior fellow at AEI.