From side-hustlers to start-ups, freelancers to small business owners, Americans have a special affinity for people who make it on their own. But the dream has a dark side.

This groundbreaking account of the development of American business from the colonial period to the present explains that the history of the United States can best be understood not as a search for freedom—but as a search for wealth and prosperity.

Examining the role of large, national business associations—and their lobbyists—in shaping economic policy and conservative politics between the 1960s and the 1990s.