Introduction -- The Power of the Illusion, the Way We Never Were -- The Dream Interrupted, Insecurity Among the Middle-Aged -- Privileged Expectations and Insecure Realities -- The Myth of Equal Opportunity -- Negotiating Uncertainty -- Economic Vulnerability as the New Normal.

Health care and medical practice in the new world, 1600-1800 -- Health care and regulation in antebellum America, 1800-1860 -- The professionalization of American medicine, 1860-1890 -- Health care in the progressive era, 1890-1920 -- The struggle over health insurance between the wars,...