![]() ![]() The irony is that - though the “bootstrap” notion is taken seriously by many today - the metaphor remains as absurd now as it was then. ![]() It was first interpreted literally and dismissed as a joke. In her research, she discovered that the bootstrapping concept was first mentioned in an 1834 broadsheet. Most of us are well acquainted with the so-called “American Dream.” Its precise meaning may vary from person to person, but it comes down to the belief that, in this country, people can succeed by pulling themselves up “by their bootstraps.” Hard work and dedication will inevitably persevere.īut where did this notion come from, how did it become so deeply ingrained in the national ethos, and, most importantly, is it a healthy ideal? These are some of the questions Alissa Quart, award-winning journalist and executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, sets out to answer in her new book, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream. ![]() Journalist Alissa Quart is hardly the first on the left to lament the dark underbelly of American individualism.īootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream by Alissa Quart. ![]()
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