Runaway Dream : Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision

"In Runaway Dream, Louis P. Masur dissects the making of the albumand the legacy it has left behind with the meticulous eye of a scholar and the unabashed affection of a true fan." —Associated Press

To millions of listeners, Born to Run is much more than an album—it's a poetic explosion of the freedom and frustration of youth. The album made Springsteen a megastar, and confirmed him as the rocker who, more than any other, gives voice to our hopes, fears, and aspirations. Runaway Dream chronicles the making and significance of Springsteen's masterwork, deftly sketching the ambition, history, and personalities that created an enduring work of art.

“With Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision, Masur again focuses on a single work of art and its cultural context, and the book shares many strengths with his previous one. The prose remains direct and uncluttered, the research extensive.” —Barnes and Noble Review

“A cultural historian with a penchant for choosing specific subjects (the year 1831, baseball's first world series, a famous photograph from the Boston busing crisis of the 1970s) and situating them against the larger background of their times, [Lou Masur] combines scholarly rigor and journalistic accessibility. These talents are vividly on display in Runaway Dream, which uses Born to Run as a synecdoche for understanding Springsteen's career as a whole.” —Jim Cullen, History News Network

“In Runaway Dream, Louis P. Masur, a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., dissects the making of the album and the legacy it has left behind with the meticulous eye of a scholar and the unabashed affection of a true fan.” —Associated Press

“Masur, as his title suggests, has ‘an affinity for the American themes that permeate [Springsteen's] work,' and his book is essentially an extended cultural essay about those.” —Chicago Tribune

“Well-thought-out … After briefly examining Springsteen's early life and work, Masur details the painstaking making of the album, analyzes each song's lyrics and musicality, discusses the album's reception and what he refers to as its spatial and temporal ‘geography,' and relates its impact and continued resonance.” —Library Journal

“Students of popular music who know little if anything about Springsteen will find much to appreciate here, as will also, of course, Springsteen's many fans.” —Booklist (starred)