Here is an eloquent, precise, and moving statement on the essence of lifelong learning. With brilliant metaphors and an enjoyable mix of ideas and personal experience, Charles Hayes makes the complex understandable in illuminating history and philosophy, belief and perception, ethnocentric behavior, and economics. Beyond the American Dream is a wonderful intellectual adventure I’ll be going back to again and again.

It was refreshing to read such a profound and passionate celebration of the rewards of learning and the value of self-directed inquiry. In the midst of all the frantic hype and fluff that deluge Americans every day and produce so much ovine behavior, it is an inspiration to hear from someone who both cherishes and exemplifies independent thinking. A brilliant and moving work.

In a world of flabby, fragmentary, and postmodernist thinking, Hayes offers a glowing tribute to old-fashioned curiosity and reason. Clear thinking is as human and healthy as breathing. Charles Hayes encourages us to give it a try.

"Beyond the American Dream outlines an essential strategy for living a more satisfying life by achieving a better understanding of the world around us."

"Provocative and uniquely hopeful. This book deserves to be widely read, particularly by those looking to rekindle the enthusiasm that brought them to the world of ideas in the first place. Highly recommended."

"A fine, eclectic discourse on the consciously created life….Engaging and thought-provoking."

"Hayes believes deeply in the value of self-education. His book reads like a plain-speaking who’s who of the best in European and American thought, every chapter packed with telling observations."

"Here is a distillation of the best thoughts from the last two thousand years of scholarship; a common sense guide for the new millennium….In a way, this book is for our grandchildren and their generation. I hope they will pay attention to it."

"A sophisticated social analysis integrating theory from diverse disciplines…a supremely intelligent epic journey into the core issues of human existence."

"An indescribably great book! Nominated as one of the top ten best books of the year."

James R. Fisher Jr., author of Six Silent Killers: Management’s Greatest Challenge (St. Lucie Press 1998) and The Taboo Against Being Your Own Best Friend (Delta Group Florida 1996) has this to say about Beyond the American Dream by Charles D. Hayes:

Beyond the American Dream is the most comprehensive, beautiful, complex, and disturbing book on the American psyche I have read in my lifetime. This great book is all about learning, about re-understanding who we are as Americans, and citizens of a new global community. Hayes takes the reader into the minds and hearts of men and women over the centuries who have attempted to make sense of their respective Ages, and plays it against his own understanding of our times. He digs deep into the roots of our cultural heritage, not as an intellectual snob, but as a card-carrying working man out of the bowels of our society. His life is a piece of poignant reality which is the stuff of art, science, philosophy, politics, psychology and popular culture.

Hayes echoes what Ralph Waldo Emerson said more than a century ago, that experience is far more compelling than institutional learning because with experience we must become learners. We too often become only knowers, punishing others with our knowledge, failing to go beyond that knowledge to apply it effectively. We become prisoners of credentials and look for positions, not jobs, for cushy situations, not challenging opportunities.

Beyond the American Dream is not about getting rich, or becoming a star. It is about using one’s head as a triumphant and outrageously euphoric experience to become all that one could become. I wish that I had had this book when I was about to launch myself into life. It would have provided me with a perspective and a vision of the possibilities beyond what convention dictates.

This book reminds us, we have become a society of too much, too many, too soon, where there is conspicuous consumption but little light-mindedness, where there is a celebration of celebrity but little moral responsibility, where we are externally driven and essentially unmindful of our noble center. Beyond the American Dream restores our moral compass by putting the reader in the equation, not as an observer but as a participant, not as a commodity for exchange but as a responsible individual who listens to his own heart to find his way. If you read no other book in the next year, I would urge you to read this book. It could change your life.