Long before today's electronic media made us aware of articulate "world opinions" across the globe, there were other dramatic international com munications. One current of opinion was expressed by the many gener ations of different nationalities who "voted with their feet" and settled down in North America. To them and to many others, the hallmark of the United States since the beginning of the republic was the freedom of choice for common people. This image was inspiring enough to build up the free institutions which together with the country's open frontiers broke the hold of mass poverty. So, options brought to the masses are America's trademark in human civilization. Nowadays, when advanced industrialization and electronic media are penetrating the world and opening new frontiers everywhere, the chal lenge from the optional society - often called "Americanization" - be comes a source of global competition, imitation or opposition and shapes the profile of our time. What is the character of this new optional society so early displayed in the United States but today emerging in many other countries and com municated wherever nations confront socio-economic problems of their own? Can analysis of its economics and communications reveal its inter national message? More than two decades of research in those fields and our experience as Americans by choice have made us try.

Long before today's electronic media made us aware of articulate "world opinions" across the globe, there were other dramatic international com munications. One current of opinion was expressed by the many gener ations of different nationalities who "voted with their feet" and settled down in North America. To them and to many others, the hallmark of the United States since the beginning of the republic was the freedom of choice for common people. This image was inspiring enough to build up the free institutions which together with the country's open frontiers broke the hold of mass poverty. So, options brought to the masses are America's trademark in human civilization. Nowadays, when advanced industrialization and electronic media are penetrating the world and opening new frontiers everywhere, the chal lenge from the optional society - often called "Americanization" - be comes a source of global competition, imitation or opposition and shapes the profile of our time. What is the character of this new optional society so early displayed in the United States but today emerging in many other countries and com municated wherever nations confront socio-economic problems of their own? Can analysis of its economics and communications reveal its inter national message? More than two decades of research in those fields and our experience as Americans by choice have made us try.

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own--scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected. Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat's dad needs her help. For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's (very crooked) history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.