Introduction: The ascent and descent of growth --
Part I. 1870-1940 : the great inventions create a revolution inside and outside the home : The starting point : life and work in 1870 ; What they ate and wore and where they bought it ; The American home : from dark and isolated to bright and networked ; Motors overtake horses and rail : inventions and incremental improvements ; From telegraph to talkies : information, communication, and entertainment ; Nasty, brutish, and short : illness and early death ; Working conditions on the job and at home ; Taking and mitigating risks : consumer credit, insurance, and the government --
Entr'acte : The midcentury shift from revolution to evolution --
Part II. 1940-2015 : the Golden Age and the early warnings of slower growth : Fast food, synthetic fibers, and split-level subdivisions : the slowing transformation of food, clothing, and housing ; See the USA in your Chevrolet or from a plane flying high above ; Entertainment and communications from Milton Berle to the iPhone ; Computers and the internet from the mainframe to Facebook ; Antibiotics, CT scans, and the evolution of health and medicine ; Work, youth, and retirement at home and on the job --
Entr'acte : Toward an understanding of slower growth --
Part III. The sources of faster and slower growth. The great leap forward from the 1920s to the 1950s : what set of miracles created it? ; Innovation : can the future match the great inventions of the past? ; Inequality and the other headwinds : long-run American economic growth slows to a crawl --
Postscript: America's growth achievement and the path ahead.