Thrift and Thriving in America

Capitalism and Moral Order from the Puritans to the Present
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-19-976906-3
Verlag: OUP US

Buch, Englisch, 622 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 1223 g

Thrift and Thriving in America is a collection of groundbreaking essays from leading scholars across the humanities and social sciences on the seminal importance of thrift to American culture and history. Underpinning the rich diversity of disciplinary perspectives presented in this volume are two overarching claims. First, far from the narrow rendering of thrift as a synonym of saving and scrimping, thrift possesses a surprising capaciousness and dynamism. Second, the idiom of thrift has, in one form or another, served as the primary language for articulating the normative dimensions of economic life throughout much of American history.

Thrift and Thriving in America puts thrift in this more expansive light where it reveals its rich and compelling etymology: thrift originally referred to the condition of "thriving." This deeper meaning has always operated as the subtext of thrift and at times has even been invoked to critique more restricted notions of thrift. So understood, thrift moves beyond the instrumentalities of "more or less" and begs the question: what does it mean and take to thrive? Examining how Americans have answered this question not only provides insight into evolving meanings of material well-being, but also into the changing understandings of the good life and the good society more generally.

In these essays, thrift becomes a powerful, but evolving moral idea and practice that has indelibly marked the character of American life since its earliest days. Thrift remains, if perhaps in unexpected and counter-intuitive ways, a key to the complex issues of contemporary and economic life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yates, Joshua J.

Hunter, James Davison

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Joshua J. Yates is a Research Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia and Director of the Program on Culture, Capitalism, and Global Change at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture.

James Davison Hunter is the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory at the University of Virginia. He has written seven books, edited three books, and published a wide range of essays, articles, and reviews all variously concerned with the problem of meaining and moral order in a time of political and cultural change in American life.