20th Century American History - Economic Aspects - Post World War II, 20th Century American History - Social Aspects - Post World War II, Economic Conditions in the United States, Social Classes - General & Miscellaneous

American Social Classes in the 1950's: Selections from Vance Packard's "The Status Seekers"

Name: American Social Classes in the 1950's: Selections from Vance Packard's "The Status Seekers"
Author: Horowitz
ISBN: 9780312122478

by Horowitz

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Overview

This volume offers an abridgment of The Status Seekers, Vance Packard's influential and popular study of social status and stratification in 1950s America. An introductory essay places Packard and his book in their historical context and discusses the role that social criticism played during the nation's transition from '50s complacency to '60s turbulence. Also included are an album of cartoons, a chronology, question for consideration, a bibliography, and an index.

Synopsis

Product Description

This abridged edition of Vance Packard's 1959 The Status Seekers presents a picture of American society in the late 1950s that allows students to develop a more accurate and complex understanding of an often-caricatured era. Daniel Horowitz's introduction provides historical context, an assssment of the book's impact, and a discussion of its critical reception.

About the Author

Daniel Horowitz is professor of American studies and history at Smith College. His scholarly work focuses on the cultural, social, and intellectual history of the United States. He is the author of The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940, which was selected by Choice Magazine as one of the outstanding academic books of 1984. His most recent book, Vance Packard and American Social Criticism (1994), examines the life and impact of one of the nation's most widely read nonfiction writers of the postwar period.