<div><div><b>An “energetic,” “provocative,” and “much-needed” investigation of the root causes of the epidemic of drug abuse, violence, and despair among middle-class American teenagers (<i>Los Angeles Times</i>)</b></div><div><br>     In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed sociologist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elliott Currie draws on years of interviews to offer a profound investigation of what has gone wrong for so many “mainstream” American adolescents. Rejecting such predictable answers as TV violence, permissiveness, and inherent evil, Currie links this crisis to a pervasive “culture of exclusion” fostered by a society in which medications trump guidance and a punitive “zero tolerance” approach to adolescent misbehavior has become the norm. Broadening his inquiry, he dissects the changes in middle-class life that stratify the world into “winners” and “losers,” imposing an extraordinarily harsh culture—and not just on kids.<br>     Vivid, compelling, and deeply empathetic, <i>The Road to Whatever</i> is a stark indictment of a society that has lost the will—or the capacity—to care.<br><br>“Convincing . . . Currie's argument is just about airtight.”—<i>The Washington Post</i></div><div><i></i><br>“Vivid . . . this book will worry you and make you think hard about the collapse of a caring environment in America.”—Frances Fox Piven<br><br></div></div>