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The Anxiety of Ascent - Middle-Class Narratives in Germany and America (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,422
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The Anxiety of Ascent - Middle-Class Narratives in Germany and America (Paperback)
Series: Morality, Society and Culture
Expected to ship within 12 - 19 working days
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This intriguing book re-evaluates a narrative of cultural decline
that developed in the wake of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism. For Weber, and a group of influential
sociologists that followed, Western modernity is marked by growing
disenchantment with the beliefs and values that had previously
given a sense of structure and meaning to life. Despite its
unparalleled material achievements, the modern West in this reading
is suffering from a crisis of meaning and is no longer able to
provide authoritative answers to the only really important
question: 'What shall we do and how shall we live?' This book
examines two influential responses to this question: the German
bourgeois ideal of the late nineteenth century and the
mid-twentieth century American celebration of the middle class. In
each period, the exploration is guided by a close reading of a
contemporary and retrospective text. For Germany, Gustav Freytag's
novel Debt and Credit (1855) is read against Thomas Mann's
Buddenbrooks (1901), and, for the US, the domestic comedy Father
Knows Best (1954-1960) is read against the cable television drama
Mad Men (2007-2015). The Anxiety of Ascent casts Weber's narrative
in a more optimistic light, pointing towards the redemptive
possibilities contained within everyday life. As such, it will
appeal to sociologists and cultural studies scholars interested in
cultural sociology, social theory, morality, meaning and the
culture of middle-class life.
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