Under George W. Bush, matters of politics had a way of becoming referenda on the nation's masculinity: were we a nation of men (decisive, single-minded, unafraid to use force and to dominate) or girls (deliberative, empathetic, given to compromise)?
PROLOGUE, p. 13
Above all, no genre suited the baby boomers' dueling impulses of attractions and guilt toward American capitalism as well as the Mob drama. The notion that the American dream might at its core be a criminal enterprise lay at the center of the era's signature works. . . .
FIVE, "Difficult Men", p. 84
