Image Credit: Gene Francis for American Made 2016 – 2026 A Nation in Turmoil
Cliff Branch has spent much of his adult life watching people closely, an instinct which served him well in business. The California entrepreneur became a millionaire in his 20s after building a company with business partner Tom Spalding, then spent decades involved in ventures ranging from marketing to real estate. It also gave him plenty of material when, later in life, he began writing about the country and generation that shaped him.
His first book, American Made: A Boomer’s Reflection, arrived in 2015 as an unconventional mix of memoir and cultural history. Branch wrote about growing up in the 1950s, coming of age during the social upheaval that followed, and eventually finding success as an entrepreneur. More than 600 images ran through the book, turning it into something readers could move through visually as much as chronologically. New Times San Luis Obispo writer Glen Starkey described the result as an unusual combination of genres that ultimately became a candid account of Branch’s life, including choices that worked and others that didn’t.
A decade later, Branch decided the story was unfinished and began writing American Made: 2016-2026, A Nation in Turmoil in January 2026. He sent it to press in May. The 208-page sequel picks up where the earlier book left off, though Branch gives far more space this time to the political and cultural changes he has watched unfold over the past ten years.
“The sequel is a personal narrative written during the first 120 days of this year,” Branch said. “Each chapter reflects my thoughts about our culture and world events as they have unfolded. It was good therapy writing the books.”
The timing was deliberate. California’s general election is scheduled for November 3, 2026, and Branch has said one reason he pushed to finish the book this year was his desire to encourage people to participate. His message is intentionally broader than support for a particular candidate or party. Starkey wrote in his review that Branch has voted for candidates from both major parties and “doesn’t care who people vote for,” so long as they approach the decision with care and attention to factual information.
Which helps explain why Branch’s project feels more like a long conversation than a conventional political argument. He has strong views, but the books spend as much time tracing how he arrived at them as they do stating them.
Image Credit: Gene Francis for American Made 2016 – 2026 A Nation in Turmoil
A California Life Behind the Commentary
Branch’s perspective grew out of a distinctly California path. He spent part of his youth in Santa Barbara County before attending Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, where he met Spalding. The pair entered business young and found success even younger, experiences Branch later used as a way to examine the ambitions and contradictions of the baby boomer generation.
The first American Made follows much of his personal history before gradually moving into Branch’s observations about business and public life. The sequel changes the proportions. His own story remains in the background, while the country around him occupies much more of the page.
That continuity is one reason Branch treats the books as a pair rather than separate projects. References in A Nation in Turmoil often lead back to ideas or experiences introduced in A Boomer’s Reflection, giving readers a longer view of how his thinking developed. The format remains deliberately accessible, with relatively self-contained chapters that read more like magazine pieces than one continuous argument. Photographs also give readers an immediate reminder of people or events that may have already slipped out of the daily news cycle.
Radio host Richard Dugan described the work as “heartfelt, humorous, and candid,” noting the strong visual component and Branch’s interest in personal ethics alongside recurring American concerns. Branch does not write as though age has given him the final answer to those concerns; the books are more interested in showing what he noticed and how his conclusions changed as events accumulated.
Reading Beyond the Familiar
The second book spends considerably more time on politics, including Branch’s views of President Trump and the divisions that have become more visible in public life. Branch is plainly opinionated, though his broader concern is the way Americans decide what information to trust in the first place.
New Times characterized him as neither a partisan nor an ideologue, describing his writing as measured even when he takes strong positions. Branch has encouraged readers to move beyond the news and commentary that already fit their political assumptions. In his view, civic participation becomes weaker when people stop encountering facts or arguments that make them reconsider what they already believe.
The books themselves reflect an interest in looking backward before reaching a conclusion. Images and old stories return readers to events after the urgency of the original headline has faded, creating some distance between what seemed important in the moment and how it looks years later.
This perspective feels especially relevant to Branch as he nears 77. He has lived through enough political cycles to remember when arguments which once dominated national conversation disappeared almost entirely, only to be replaced by another crisis seeming equally permanent. His response has been to keep a record and use it to encourage readers to pay closer attention to the decisions they make as citizens.
American Made: A Boomer’s Reflection and A Nation in Turmoil are now being offered together for $15 through the American Made website, with distribution handled directly rather than through Amazon. The lower price also fits the purpose Branch has attached to the sequel: he wants more people reading, thinking about the past decade, and arriving at their own decision before they vote.
For someone who has spent a career studying how people behave, Branch’s latest project is less about predicting what Americans will do next than asking them to pay closer attention before they do it.
Written in partnership with Tom White
