From Alienation to Addiction: Modern American Work in Global Historical Perspective (United States in the World) - Hardcover

Stearns, Peter N.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594515042 ISBN 13: 9781594515040

Publisher: Routledge, 2008

Synopsis

Over the past two hundred years, work experiences have changed greatly, causing new issues such as heightened boredom and alienation, but also new levels of obsession with work. This book looks at the modern changes in work, examining global patterns but also special features of the work culture in the United States. For the world, the United States, and also key groups such as women and children, understanding the modern history of work goes a long way toward explaining key issues in the U.S. work culture today.

About this title

About the Author

Peter N. Stearns is Provost and Professor of History at George Mason University. He has taught previously at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Rutgers, and Carnegie Mellon; he was trained at Harvard University. He has published widely both in world history and modern social history, including the history of emotions. Representative works in world history include World History: A Survey, The Industrial Revolution in World History, Gender in World History, Consumerism in World History, and Growing Up: The History of Childhood in Global Context. His publications in social history include Old Age in Preindustrial Society, Anger: The Struggle for Emotional Control in America’s History (with Carol Stearns), Jealousy: The Evolution of an Emotion in American History, American Cool: Developing the Twentieth-Century Emotional Style, Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in Western Society, The Battleground of Desire: The Struggle for Self-Control in Modern America, and American Fear: The Causes and Consequences of High Anxiety. He has also edited encyclopedias of world and social history, and since 1967 has served as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Social History. He is deeply interested in using history to illuminate contemporary issues and politics.

Review

“Are Americans workaholics or industrious? Is work fulfilling or does it drive us crazy? When does a ‘right to work’ become a ‘need to work’? It takes a master historian like Peter Stearns to successfully take us across two centuries and three continents for answers. Every student―and a lot of us who are already in the work force and wonder why we don't have us much vacation time as Europeans―needs to read and think about this nuanced and often surprising account of changing work patterns and attitudes.”
―Daniel Walkowitz, New York University, author of Working with Class: Social Workers and the Politics of Middle-Class Identity

“The book has all the features one anticipates from a work by Peter Stearns―lucid synthesis, acute judgments, and an exceptionally broad coverage of space and time.”
―Daniel T. Rodgers, Princeton University, author of The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920

“With crystalline prose and a touch of wry humor, Stearns dispatches with a monumental task; he is the first to look back on the history of industrial work from its pre-modern beginnings through the lens of present-day concerns with overwork, immigration, technological redundancy, as well as the peculiarities of American workplace complaints.”
―Leon Fink, University of Illinois–Chicago, author of In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1594515042
• ISBN 13: 9781594515040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 190