Jews and the American soul : human nature in the twentieth century / Andrew R. Heinze.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heinze, Andrew R., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Self-actualization (Psychology)--Religious aspects--Judaism--History--20th century.

Self-actualization (Psychology).

Psychology--Popular works--History--20th century.

Psychology.

Psychological literature--United States--History.

Psychological literature.

Psychology and religion--United States--History.

Psychology and religion.

Jews--United States--Intellectual life--20th century.

Jews.

United States--Civilization--Jewish influences.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (462 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

[Pbk ed.].

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2004]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

What do Joyce Brothers and Sigmund Freud, Rabbi Harold Kushner and philosopher Martin Buber have in common? They belong to a group of pivotal and highly influential Jewish thinkers who altered the face of modern America in ways few people recognize. So argues Andrew Heinze, who reveals in rich and unprecedented detail the extent to which Jewish values, often in tense interaction with an established Christian consensus, shaped the country's psychological and spiritual vocabulary. Jews and the American Soul is the first book to recognize the central role Jews and Jewish values have played in shaping American ideas of the inner life. It overturns the widely shared assumption that modern ideas of human nature derived simply from the nation's Protestant heritage. Heinze marshals a rich array of evidence to show how individuals ranging from Erich Fromm to Ann Landers changed the way Americans think about mind and soul. The book shows us the many ways that Jewish thinkers influenced everything from the human potential movement and pop psychology to secular spirituality. It also provides fascinating new interpretations of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Western views of the psyche; the clash among Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish moral sensibilities in America; the origins and evolution of America's psychological and therapeutic culture; the role of Jewish women as American public moralists, and more. A must-read for anyone interested in the contribution of Jews and Jewish culture to modern America.

Contents:

I. Introduction : Jews and the American soul

I. One nation under stress, divisible : Jewish immigrants and the national psyche. 1. Jews and the psychodynamics of American life

II. The moral universe of the Jews. 2. Benjamin Franklin in Hebrew : the musar sage of Philadelphia

3. Jews and the crisis of the psyche

4. Freud and Adler : the rise of Jewish psychoanalytic moralism

III. Jewish morality and the psychological shift of American culture, 1890-1945. 5. Popular psychology : the great American synthesis of religion and science

6. Jewish psychological evangelism : a collective biography of the first generation

7. The moronic immigrant and the neurotic Jew : Jews and American perception of intelligence, personality, and race

8. The specter of the mob : Jews and the battle for the American unconscious

IV. Peace of mind : Judaism and the therapeutic polemics of postwar America. 9. Rabbi Liebman and the psychic pain of the World War II generation

10. Peace of mind : a new Jewish gospel of love

11. Clare Boothe Luce and the Catholic-Jewish clash over Freud in America

V. Jews and the American search for meaning, 1950-2000. 12. Jews and the creation of American humanism

13. Joyce Brothers : the Jewish woman as psychologist of suburban America

14. Holocaust, Hasidism, suffering, redemption.

Notes:

Originally published: 2004.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [353]-418) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691127750

0691127751

9780691227917

0691227918

OCLC:

1242875564