ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on American culture which are sorted into the categories one might find in a classic ethnography, such as, 'ecology/economy', 'family life and leisure', 'class and power', 'ritual and religion', and 'ideology'. It then describes about buttons (Grebinger) or commuting (Descartes, Kottak, and Kelly) or heroin addicts (Bourgois) or Groundhog Day (Myers), could all appear under the heading of 'class and power', because the United States continues to dominate the world not only in terms of the amount of resources it commands but also in terms of ideology, especially that hallmark component we call the American Dream. The Dream mesmerizes those within as well as outside the country; it remains possible for a poor American to look at a rich American and think, 'That could be me', even as the income gap widens.
