Read an excerpt

Exporting American Dreams will be available soon. In the meantime, you can read an excerpt, thanks to Amazon.com's "search inside" feature, which takes takes you through an episode in Chapter 1. Here's how it begins:

Thurgood Marshall met Bernard Taper in New York on a flight to Atlanta in 1956. It was a frigid and icy late February afternoon. Marshall was on the plane, in a double-breasted suit, his large frame folded into a seat, when Taper boarded. The reporter was to accompany the lawyer to a civil rights meeting. “During the takeoff, Marshall sat hunched at the window, gazing with concentration into the heavily overcast sky, as if contributing his willpower to the effort to get us off the ground.” When the plane was aloft, Marshall relaxed and lit a cigarette. “One thing troubles me about this meeting ahead,” he said to Taper. “We won’t be able to smoke. That’s gonna hurt.”

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