| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Cultural history at its best. . . . Provokes, startles, and keeps the reader arguing with himself as well as with the writer. . . . A book of fundamental importance.--Bruce Mazlish, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Product Description
The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissism Revisited."
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
The Waning of the Sense of Historical Time As the twentieth century approaches its end, the conviction grows that many other things are ending too. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The Waning of the Sense of Historical Time As the twentieth century approaches its end, the conviction grows that many other things are ending too. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastically insightful,
This review is from: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (Paperback)
Some would call this book 'prophetic'.Even though it was written in the Seventies, many of the points this book makes, and social trends it uncovers, where not only true then, but are exacerbated today. This book, though focusing on the United States, is relevant for the entire Western society. It challenges the 'improvement' in our society brought about by a mix of capitalism, liberalism and consumerism. It questions the values of such a society, and challenges motivations behind recent social 'movements' and campaigns. A must read for anyone wondering how we have arrived at the world we live in today where everything should be OK, but isn't. Where secularism has not provided a 'one for all' mentality, but 'every man for himself'. Where bewildered parents wonder what parenting means. Where the workplace is and environment of antagonism with a smile. Where liberalism has created a world with enforced boundaries. Where it's not a question of whether you are right, but whether you get caught. Where hope has been strangled by 'diminishing expectations'. Many books could fall into the trap of being judgemental, or harking back with rose-tinted views of days and decades past. This book doesn't do this, it just stands out as a fair and accurate condemnation of where American Society was heading in the 1970's (and where it is today).
8 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Abusing Narcissism,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (Paperback)
'The Culture of Narcissism - American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations' was published in the first year of the unhappy presidency of Jimmy Carter (1979). The latter endorsed the book publicly (in his famous 'national malaise' speech). The main thesis of the book is that the Americans have created a self-absorbed (though not self aware), greedy and frivolous society which depended on consumerism, demographic studies, opinion polls and Government to know and to define itself. What is the solution? Lasch proposed a 'return to basics': self-reliance, the family, nature, the community, and the Protestant work ethic. To those who adhere, he promised an elimination of their feelings of alienation and despair. There is no single Lasch. This chronicler of culture, did so mainly by chronicling his inner turmoil, conflicting ideas and ideologies, emotional upheavals, and intellectual vicissitudes. In this sense, of (courageous) self-documentation, Mr. Lasch epitomized Narcissism, was the quintessential Narcissist, the better positioned to criticize the phenomenon. Some 'scientific' disciplines (e.g., the history of culture and History in general) are closer to art than to the rigorous (a.k.a. 'exact' or 'natural' or 'physical' sciences). Lasch borrowed heavily from other, more established branches of knowledge without paying tribute to the original, strict meaning of concepts and terms. Such was the use that he made of 'Narcissism'. Lasch's greatest error was that he did not acknowledge that there is an abyss between narcissism and self love, being interested in oneself and being obsessively preoccupied with oneself. Lasch confuses the two. The price of progress is growing self-awareness and with it growing pains and the pains of growing up. It is not a loss of meaning and hope - it is just that pain has a tendency to push everything to the background. Those are constructive pains, signs of adjustment and adaptation, of evolution. America has no inflated, megalomaniac, grandiose ego. It never built an overseas empire, it is made of dozens of ethnic immigrant groups, it strives to learn, to emulate. Americans do not lack empathy - they are the foremost nation of volunteers and also professes the biggest number of (tax deductible) donation makers. Americans are not exploitative - they are hard workers, fair players, Adam Smith-ian egoists. They believe in Live and Let Live. They are individualists and they believe that the individual is the source of all authority and the universal yardstick and benchmark. This is a positive philosophy. Granted, it led to inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth. But then other ideologies had much worse outcomes. Luckily, they were defeated by the human spirit, the best manifestation of which is still democratic capitalism. Sam Vaknin, author of 'Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited'.
0 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
far too long a wait,
By
This review is from: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (Paperback)
The book took weeks to get here resulting in me getting behind in my studies at uni. However, the book was in the condition it stated. I had no idea it was coming from America so would have rather not been decieved and would rather have paid more somewhere else and not waited as long.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > Specific Topics > The Self, Ego & Personality
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Government & Politics
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Psychology Textbooks
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Anthropology > Social & Cultural
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Sociology
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
