Full Description
This classic collection of essays by Riesman discusses the implications of affluence in America. Riesman maintains that the question that should be raised by wealth has shifted over time from how to obtain wealth to how to make use of it. Another key theme concerns issues relevant to higher education, such as academic freedom. This book examines the notion that America is not as open a society as it may appear to be; it shows how social science may be used to explain why this is so. In a brilliant, lengthy reevaluation Riesman both clarifies and revises that earlier assessment with unusual luster and candor.
Contents
Introduction to the Transaction Edition
Section I: The Impact of the Cold War
Preface
National Purpose
The American Crisis
Reflections on Containment and Initiatives
The Nylon War
Some Observations on the Limits of Totalitarian Power
The Cold War and the West: Answers Given in a
Partisan Review Symposium
Section II: Abundance for What?
Preface
Careers and Consumer Behavior
A Career Drama in a Middle-aged Farmer
Work and Leisure: Fusion or Polarity?
Leisure and Work in Postindustrial Society
Some Issues in the Future of Leisure
Sociability, Permissiveness, and Equality: A Preliminary
Formulation
The Suburban Dislocation
Flight and Search in the New Suburbs
Autos in America
Abundance for What?
The Found Generation
Some Continuities and Discontinuities in the Education of Women
The Search for Challenge
Section III: Abundance for Whom?
Preface
The Social and Psychological Setting of Veblen's Economic
Theory
The Relevance of Thorstein Veblen
Self and Society: Reflections on Some Turks in Transition
The Oral Tradition, the Written Word, and the Screen
Image
Section IV: Social Science Research: Problems, Methods, Opportunities
Preface
Law and Sociology
Tocqueville as Ethnographer
Introduction to Crestwood Heights
The Sociology of the Interview
Orbits of Tolerance, Interviewers, and Elites
Interviewers, Elites, and Academic Freedom
The Study of National Character: Some Observations on the
American Case
Acknowledgments and Notes on Previous Publication
Index
