American Doom Loop

“For the past half-century, journalist Dale Maharidge has been an indispensable voice on America, bearing witness to what is now widely recognized as an empire in decline, warning us about the fall long before it was fashionable to do so. In American Doom Loop, he revisits the 1980s, the start of both his reporting career and so much of our present dysfunction. For anyone seeking to understand the violence endemic to modern America, this is essential, eye-opening reading, a reminder of how we got here—and the human toll that comes with forgetting.” – Jessica Bruder, author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century“An ode to journalism, the old-fashioned kind, by a working-class kid driven by idealism, by a desire to make America a better place. He rides the rails with hobos, helps young Salvadorans flee the violence, talks to cops, steel workers, and sharecroppers; and has endless hours and empathy for victims of rape and violence. He bears and bares the demons and PTSD. A beautiful book.” – Raymond Bonner, author of Weakness and Deceit: U.S. Policy and El Salvador and Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy

Dale Maharidge is the author of Pulitzer Prize–winning And Their Children After Them, and twelve other books. Among them is Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, which inspired Bruce Springsteen to write the song “Youngstown.” His most recent nonfiction book is Fucked at Birth, and his novel Burn Coast was published in 2022. He has written for the Nation, Smithsonian, Harper’s Magazine, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, and others. He was a 1988 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.