Award-winning Media author and editor Tom McGrath examines the Decade of Greed and its repercussions on America’s society in his latest book, Triumph of the Yuppies, writes Michael Bradley for Main Line Today.
McGrath’s book looks at how the nation took a divisive hard turn that continues to haunt us to this day.
“There’s a divide in America,” said McGrath. “There are the educated and affluent—and everybody else. The Yuppies were [the former]. It started in the ’80s, and the rift has deepened. You see it in today’s income inequality and the cultural power that belongs to an elite group.”
“Yuppie” is a term for the young urban professionals who defined the fast-paced world of conspicuous consumption prevalent in the Reagan era.
“Yuppies wanted to live successfully in every way,” said McGrath. “They wanted high-priced careers. They wanted gourmet food. They were going to work out a lot and buy products that were the best—and they wanted people to know they had them.”
The grand finale of the book covers the stock market crash of 1987, when the media was “literally writing obituaries” for Yuppies.
Read more about Tom McGrath’s Triumph of the Yuppies book in Main Line Today.
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