The business of America : the cultural production of a post-war nation / Graham Thompson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thompson, Graham, 1965-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Business anthropology--United States.

Business anthropology.

Corporate culture--United States.

Corporate culture.

United States--Civilization.

United States.

United States--Study and teaching.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (200 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London ; Sterling, Va. : Pluto Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Business of America examines the complex linking of business and nationhood in post-war United States literature against the backdrop of changing concepts of the nation in the field of American Studies. The first part of the book examines how white male literary culture has been largely hostile to business during this period and how it has represented transnational shifts in the nature of business as threats to supposedly American values like the individual, the family, or freedom. The book charts the way that such an uneasiness towards business relies upon a discourse about America, business and empire that is increasingly untenable in the post-war world. By way of comparison, The Business of America looks at how literature by women and by writers from different racial, ethnic and sexual groups often deals with business from the more localised angle of work. Graham Thompson shows how this attention to work provides a less abstract and more oppositional approach to the connection between business and America.

Contents:

White male literary culture

Errands in the post-war/cold war jungle

Entropy, postmodernism and global systems

Postnational recovery narratives and beyond

The difference of gender, race and sexuality

Objectivist fantasies and the industry of writing and piracy

Assimilation, citizenship and post-ethnicity

Queer profits and losses.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786611725143

9781849644990

1849644993

9781281725141

1281725145

9781435661011

143566101X

OCLC:

666931906