Books in The Way West rehearsal room

California: The Great Exception by Carey McWilliams

Where I Was From by Joan Didion

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Americans and the California Dream by Kevin Starr

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Hard Road West by Keith Heyer Meldahl

The Oregon Trail: An American Saga by David Dary

Manifest Destinies: America’s Westward Expansion and the Road to the Civil War by Steven E. Woodworth

The Way West: True Stories of the American Frontier edited by James A. Crutchfield

The Donner Party: A Doomed Journey by Tim McNeese

The Donner Party by George Keithley

Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick

The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream by H.W. Brands

The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation by Jim Cullen

Who Stole The American Dream? by Hedrick Smith

The American Dream: A Cultural History by Lawrence R. Samuel

The Betrayal of the American Dream by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele

The Myth of American Exceptionalism by Godfrey Hodgson

American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword by Seymour Martin Lipset

The End of American Exceptionalism by David M. Wrobel

The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom by Suze Orman

The Money Class: Learn to Create Your New American Dream by Suze Orman

Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman

There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute by Jeffrey Robinson

End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Great Recession by Tom Gorman

Other sources

This American Life episode 355: "The Giant Pool of Money" and episode 390: "Return to the Giant Pool of Money"

Documentary films:

The West - Ken Burns

The Donner Party - Ric Burns

Trail of Tragedy: The Excavation of the Donner Party Site - produced by the United States Forest Service