People of plenty : economic abundance and the American character / by David M. Potter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Potter, David Morris.

Contributor:

American Council of Learned Societies.

Series:

ACLS Humanities E-Book.

Charles R. Walgreen Foundation lectures

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National characteristics, American.

United States--Economic conditions.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxv, 217 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1954.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

America has long been famous as a land of plenty, but we seldom realize how much the American people are a people of plenty-a people whose distinctive character has been shaped by economic abundance. In this important book, David M. Potter breaks new ground both in the study of this phenomenon and in his approach to the question of national character. He brings a fresh historical perspective to bear on the vital work done in this field by anthropologists, social psychologists, and psychoanalysts. "The rejection of hindsight, with the insistence on trying to see events from the point of view of the participants, was a governing theme with Potter. . . . This sounds like a truism. Watching him apply it however, is a revelation."-Walter Clemons, Newsweek "The best short book on national character I have seen . . . broadly based, closely reasoned, and lucidly written."-Karl W. Deutsch, Yale Review

Contents:

Front matter

Introduction: History, the Behavioral Studies, and the Science of Man

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

I. The Historians and National Character

II. The Behavioral Scientists and National Character

111troduction to Part II

III. The Nature of American Abundance

IV. Abundance, Mobility, and Stalls

V. Democracy and Abundance

VI. Abundance and the Mission of America

VII. Abundance and the Frontier Hypothesis

VIII. The Institution of Abundance: Advertising

IX. Abundance and the Formation of Character

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612070129

9781282070127

1282070126

9780226676319

0226676315

OCLC:

367882730