Analysis: A Macat Analysis of David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd
A Study of the Changing American Character
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 Months Free
Analysis: A Macat Analysis of David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd
Buy Now for £6.57
-
Narrated by:
-
Macat.com
-
By:
-
Jarrod Homer
American lawyer-turned-sociologist David Riesman published his first book, The Lonely Crowd, in 1950. Aimed at academics, it nonetheless gained a large popular audience. In it, Riesman explores the links between social character - the ways in which members of a society are similar to one another - and social structures. He argues that as the United States became predominantly consumer-driven, rather than production-driven - particularly after World War II - American social character changed. Riesman said that prewar Americans had been largely inner-directed: they based their behavior on their own internal values and beliefs. Postwar Americans were becoming other-directed, with external groups, including peers and the media, now a key influence on the way they behaved. Riesman was observing, rather than judging, this change. The public, however, read his book as a criticism of the United States' newly developing social character. Riesman's work popularized sociology, helping to establish it as an academic discipline, and today it provides a fascinating window into the 1950s American psyche.
©2016 Macat Inc (P)2016 Macat Inc