Has America’s obsession with wealth and material possession become a mania that distracts us from recognizing the truly important things in life? A new scholarly book argues that, “in the age of globalization, Americans are addictively driven by the brain’s pleasure centers to live turbocharged lives in pursuit of status and possessions at the expense of the only things that can truly make us happy: relationships with other people.” If the author is right, the country has crested the manic wave created by the 1990s stock market boom, and is headed for a very big emotional fall.