The Anxieties of Affluence : Critiques of American Consumer Culture, 1939-1979

"This book charts the reactions of prominent American writers to the unprecedented prosperity of the decades following World War II. It begins with an examination of Lewis Mumford's wartime call for "democratic" consumption and concludes with an analysis of the origins of President Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech of 1979. Between these bookends, Daniel Horowitz documents a broad range of competing views, each in its own way reflective of a deep-seated ambivalence toward consumer culture - a persistent but shifting tension between a commitment to self-restraint and the pursuit of personal satisfaction through the acquisition of commercial goods and experiences." "In his final chapter, Horowitz examines the writings of three leading intellectuals - Daniel Bell, Robert N. Bellah, and Christopher Lasch - whose views shaped President Carter's response to the energy crisis of the 1970s. An epilogue carries the story forward to the turn of the new century, when Americans found themselves grappling with the political and cultural implications of a new wave of prosperity."--Jacket

american Intellectual Responses To Affluence Have Ranged From The Celebratory To The Deeply Ambivalent. In This Intellectual History, Horowitz (american Studies, Smith College) Explores American Reactions To Affluence In The Context Of The Spread Of Consumerist, The Meaning Of The Cold War, The Growth Of Corporate Power, And The Persistence Of American Inequality. He Examines Writings By Prominent And More Obscure Writers From The End Of The Great Depression Through The Late 1970s, Noting Persistent Themes Related To Moralistic Attitudes To Consumerism; The Rise Of Psychology As An Explanation For Social Problems; And The Power Of Books By Ralph Nader, Rachel Carson, Martin Luther King, Betty Friedan, And Others To Set The Public Intellectual Agenda. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, Or

business History Review

the Anxieties Of Affluence Is A Wonderful Summary Of An Age In Which Public Intellectuals Often Critical Of American Culture Wrote Best-selling Books. . . . [horowitz's] Study Is...strikingly Fair And Thorough. It Is Ideal For Classroom Use And, Especially For The Generations That Did Not Grow Up With Goodman And Packard, A Helpful Entrée Into A Now Fading Intellectual Tradition.

Frontmatter Tables (page ix) Introduction (page 1) 1. Chastened Consumption: World War II and the Campaign for a Democratic Standard of Living (page 20) 2. Celebratory Émigrés: Ernest Dichter and George Katona (page 48) 3. A Southerner in Exile, the Cold War, and Social Order: David M. Potter's People of Plenty (page 79) 4. Critique from Within: John Kenneth Galbraith, Vance Packard, and Betty Friedan (page 101) 5. From the Affluent Society to the Poverty of Affluence, 1960-1962: Paul Goodman, Oscar Lewis, Michael Harrington, and Rachel Carson (page 129) 6. Consumer Activism, 1965-1970: Ralph Nader, Martin Luther King Jr., and Paul R. Ehrlich (page 162) 7. The Energy Crisis and the Quest to Contain Consumption: Daniel Bell, Christopher Lasch, and Robert Bellah (page 203) 8. Three Intellectuals and a President: Jimmy Carter, "Energy and the Crisis of Confidence" (page 225) Epilogue: The Response to Affluence at the End of the Century (page 245) Notes (page 257) Acknowledgments (page 319) Index (page 323) During World War II, millions of American consumers began to put depression conditions behind them and started to look forward to a peace that would enable them to extend their experience of prosperity by spending what they had saved. A wide-ranging exploration of conflicting American attitudes toward affluence.