When a cultural movement that began to take shape in the mid-twentieth century erupted into mainstream American culture in the late 1990s, it brought to the fore the idea that it is as important to improve one's own sense of pleasure as it is to manage depression and anxiety. Cultural historian Daniel Horowitz's research reveals that this change happened in the context of key events. World War II, the Holocaust, post-war prosperity, the rise of counter-culture, the crises of the 1970s, the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and the prime ministerships of Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron provided the important context for the development of the field today known as positive psychology. Happier? provides the first history of the origins, development, and impact of the way Americans -- and now many around the world -- shifted from mental illness to well-being as they pondered the human condition. This change, which came about from the fusing of knowledge drawn from Eastern spiritual traditions, behavioral economics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and cognitive psychology, has been led by scholars and academic entrepreneurs, as they wrestled with the implications of political events and forces such as neoliberalism and cultural conservatism, and a public eager for self-improvement. Linking the development of happiness studies and positive psychology with a broad series of social changes, including the emergence of new media and technologies like TED talks, blogs, web sites, and neuroscience, as well as the role of evangelical ministers, Oprah Winfrey's enterprises, and funding from government agencies and private foundations, Horowitz highlights the transfer of specialized knowledge into popular arenas. Along the way he shows how marketing triumphed, transforming academic disciplines and spirituality into saleable products. Ultimately, Happier? illuminates how positive psychology, one of the most influential academic fields of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, infused American culture with captivating promises for a happier society.

Happier?: The History of a Cultural Movement That Aspired to Transform America

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Horowitz, Daniel

Psychology & Counseling

Oxford University Press

Our Hearts Fell to the Ground and Rebuilding Old Commonwealths and American: Social Classes in the 1950's and Lyndon B. Johnson & American Liberalism

History

Calloway, Colin G.

Link, William A.

PACKARD, VANCE

Schulman, Bruce J.

Americas

Bedford/St.Martin's

Our Hearts Fell to the Ground and Rebuilding Commonwealths and American Social: Classes in the 1950's and Lyndon B. Johnson & American Liberalism

In a decade of constant crises, perhaps the most formidable challenge that Americans faced in the 1970s was the energy shortage. An era of inexpensive and seemingly unlimited supplies of oil came to an end with the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 and strained the nation's economy for the remainder of the decade. In his "Crisis of Confidence" speech, one of the most remarkable political addresses in American history, President Jimmy Carter drew connections between America's increasing dependence on foreign oil and what he considered larger, more spiritual problems that plagued the nation. Through carefully selected documents that bring together the high-level White House decision-making process and the national conversation about energy, Daniel Horowitz helps students understand both the crises of the 1970s and the continuing relationship between American economic and foreign policy. An introduction by the editor, headnotes to documents, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide further pedagogical support.

Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970s: The "Crisis of Confidence" Speech of July 15, 1979

Business & Money

Economics

Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson & American Liberalism and: Women's Magazines and American Social Classes in the 1950's

Polenberg, Richard D.

Walker, Nancy, A.

America's History 5e V2 & Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970's & Plessy v. Ferguson & Muller v. Oregon

Dumenil, Lynn

Henretta, James A.

Brody, David

Thomas, Brook

Woloch,Nancy

Vance Packard's bestselling books--Hidden Persuaders (1957), Status Seekers (1959), and Waste Makers (1960)--taught the generation that came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s about the dangers posed by advertising, social climbing, and planned obsolescence. Like Betty Friedan and William H. Whyte, Jr., Packard (1914- ) was a journalist who played an important role in the nation's transition from the largely complacent 1950s to the tumultuous 1960s. He was also one of the first social critics to benefit from and foster the newly energized social and political consciousness of this period. Based in part on interviews with Packard, Daniel Horowitz's intellectual biography focuses on the period during which Packard left magazine writing to author his most famous works of social criticism. Horowitz traces the influence of Packard's education and early years in rural Pennsylvania, providing a deeper understanding of his thought and his later books. Packard's life, Horowitz contends, illuminates the dilemmas of a freelance social critic without inherited wealth or academic affiliation. His career also expands our understanding of how one era shaped the next, underscoring how the adversarial 1960s drew on the mass culture of the previous decade. Originally published in 1994. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Vance Packard and American Social Criticism

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

The University of North Carolina Press

Vance Packard's bestselling books--Hidden Persuaders (1957), Status Seekers (1959), and Waste Makers (1960)--taught the generation that came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s about the dangers posed by advertising, social climbing, and planned obsolescence. Like Betty Friedan and William H. Whyte, Jr., Packard (1914- ) was a journalist who played an important role in the nation's transition from the largely complacent 1950s to the tumultuous 1960s. He was also one of the first social critics to benefit from and foster the newly energized social and political consciousness of this period.      Based in part on interviews with Packard, Daniel Horowitz's intellectual biography focuses on the period during which Packard left magazine writing to author his most famous works of social criticism. Horowitz traces the influence of Packard's education and early years in rural Pennsylvania, providing a deeper understanding of his thought and his later books. Packard's life, Horowitz contends, illuminates the dilemmas of a freelance social critic without inherited wealth or academic affiliation. His career also expands our understanding of how one era shaped the next, underscoring how the adversarial 1960s drew on the mass culture of the previous decade.Originally published in 1994.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Professionals & Academics

Named Notable Title in American Intellectual History for 2012 by the Society for U.S. Intellectual History
How is it that American intellectuals, who had for 150 years worried about the deleterious effects of affluence, more recently began to emphasize pleasure, playfulness, and symbolic exchange as the essence of a vibrant consumer culture? The New York intellectuals of the 1930s rejected any serious or analytical discussion, let alone appreciation, of popular culture, which they viewed as morally questionable. Beginning in the 1950s, however, new perspectives emerged outside and within the United States that challenged this dominant thinking. Consuming Pleasures reveals how a group of writers shifted attention from condemnation to critical appreciation, critiqued cultural hierarchies and moralistic approaches, and explored the symbolic processes by which individuals and groups communicate.
Historian Daniel Horowitz traces the emergence of these new perspectives through a series of intellectual biographies. With writers and readers from the United States at the center, the story begins in Western Europe in the early 1950s and ends in the early 1970s, when American intellectuals increasingly appreciated the rich inventiveness of popular culture. Drawing on sources both familiar and newly discovered, this transnational intellectual history plays familiar works off each other in fresh ways. Among those whose work is featured are Jürgen Habermas, Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Walter Benjamin, C. L. R. James, David Riesman and Marshall McLuhan, Richard Hoggart, members of London's Independent Group, Stuart Hall, Paddy Whannel, Tom Wolfe, Herbert Gans, Susan Sontag, Reyner Banham, and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

Consuming Pleasures: Intellectuals and Popular Culture in the Postwar World (The Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America)

University of Pennsylvania Press

"For centuries," Daniel Horowitz writes, "Americans have worried about the consequences of comfort, affluence, and luxury. They have often greeted a rising standard of living with a mixture of pleasure and disquiet. Anxious about the impact of ease on the commitment to hard work, savings, and self-control, and ambivalent about the implications of increased wealth, many in the United States have expressed concern about new levels and kinds of consumption. This book traces the development of such misgivings." "Clear, judicious, thorough and unfailingly interesting; a solid work on a most significant topic."―Technology and Culture. "An illuminating study...intelligent and perceptive...full of interesting insights."―Reviews in American History. "Daniel Horowitz has made creative use of diverse sources in order to integrate several fascinating strands of American cultural history.... His findings have broad implications...."―American Historical Review. "An imaginative and carefully researched study.... The Morality of Spending accomplishes what it sets out to do: not a sociology of money but a history of ideas about money."―Journal of Social History.

The Morality of Spending: Attitudes Toward the Consumer Society in America 1875-1940

Ivan R. Dee

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