Pamela Walker Laird (University of Colorado Denver)

Self-Made

The Stories That Forged an American Myth

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Over four centuries, ambitious Americans have forged the myth of self-made success into an ideological tool that rewards individualism and promotes inequality. Pamela Laird's compelling history reveals roots of our current cultural and political divides and also highlights enduring traditions of self-improvement to serve the common good.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Seitenzahl: 384
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Oktober 2025
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 231mm x 157mm x 28mm
• Gewicht: 658g
• ISBN-13: 9781108833899
• ISBN-10: 1108833896
• Artikelnr.: 73739118

Autorenporträt

Pamela Walker Laird is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Colorado Denver. Her publications include Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin (2007), which won the Hagley Prize; and Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface
Introduction: challenging the myth of self-made success
1. A new world of ambition and judgment
2. Self-improvement for the common good in the 1700s
3. Work and merit in a new republic
4. The politics of self-making in a self-made nation
5. Forging origins in Antebellum stories
6. Character and money in mid-century
7. Gilded Age heroes
8. Competing stories of self-help before 1936
9. Stories against the New Deal
10. Targeting the common good, 1950-2000
11. The myth's twenty-first century victories.