In Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont, historians Tom Hanchett and Ryan Sumner have adapted their award-winning exhibit, "Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers: Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont in the New South," into an insightful collection of photographs that allows readers to interpret the history of the Charlotte region not as a sequence of events, but as a rich tapestry of diverse experiences. Through a multitude of voices and perspectives, the book presents an engaging and intimate history, highlighting both ordinary and extraordinary people's stories that reflect the experience of the Charlotte region. Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont depicts the African-American experience from Emancipation to Civil Rights, the changing roles of southern women, the causes and consequences of industrialization, and the evolving character of life in the urban and rural South.

"The bestselling author of Bowling Alone offers [an] ... examination of the American Dream in crisis--how and why opportunities for upward mobility are diminishing, jeopardizing the prospects of an ever larger segment of Americans"--