Book Description
Once there was a golden age of American thrift, when citizens lived sensibly within their means and worked hard to stay out of debt. The growing availability of credit in this century, however, has brought those days to an end--undermining traditional moral virtues such as prudence, diligence, and the delay of gratification while encouraging reckless consumerism. Or so we commonly believe. In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Lendol Calder shows that this conception of the past is in fact a myth.
Calder presents the first book-length social and cultural history of the rise of consumer credit in America. He focuses on the years between 1890 and 1940, when the legal, institutional, and moral bases of today's consumer credit were established, and in an epilogue takes the story up to the present. He draws on a wide variety of sources--including personal diaries and letters, government and business records, newspapers, advertisements, movies, and the words of such figures as Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, and P. T. Barnum--to show that debt has always been with us. He vigorously challenges the idea that consumer credit has eroded traditional values. Instead, he argues, monthly payments have imposed strict, externally reinforced disciplines on consumers, making the culture of consumption less a playground for hedonists than an extension of what Max Weber called the "iron cage" of disciplined rationality and hard work.
Throughout, Calder keeps in clear view the human face of credit relations. He re-creates the Dickensian world of nineteenth-century pawnbrokers, takes us into the dingy backstairs offices of loan sharks, into small-town shops and New York department stores, and explains who resorted to which types of credit and why. He also traces the evolving moral status of consumer credit, showing how it changed from a widespread but morally dubious practice into an almost universal and generally accepted practice by World War II. Combining clear, rigorous arguments with a colorful, narrative style, Financing the American Dream will attract a wide range of academic and general readers and change how we understand one of the most important and overlooked aspects of American social and economic life.
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Once there was a golden age of American thrift, when citizens lived sensibly within their means and worked hard to stay out of debt The growing availability of credit in this century, however, has brought those days to an end -- undermining traditional moral virtues such as prudence, diligence, and the delay of gratification while encouraging reckless consumerism. Or so we commonly believe. In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Lendol Calder shows that this conception of the past is in fact a myth.
Customer Reviews:
appealing, easy to grasp the credit revolution.......2005-04-01
Calder book is an appealing read. I must agree with other reviews that this is usually not a very interesting subject, finance and credit, but Calder presents it in an interesting matter that can be quite witty at times. The reader will see how Victorian money management ideas of the past were largely accepted passively by most but only actually followed by few. Credit has existed since before this countries foundation argues Calder and he details the progression of credit systems to present times.
One-stop Shopping.......2004-03-09
I used Calder's book in one of my History courses and found it to be thorough, even-handed and timely. Calder's prose style is remarkably engaging; students had no trouble navigating the text and discerning the major points. It's a gripping read, but also tremendously informative as well. If you have time to read only one book on the development of consumerism and consumer values, this is it. In fact, I have read few books that I consider a better "window" on the shaping of modern American culture.
The History of the Dream.......2001-09-29
Calder covers what can be a dry subject in an interesting manner. He follows the history of consumer credit from the early 19th century up to the period of the New Deal. The book discusses the evolving attitudes toward credit and debt and the products that eventually revolutionized the system of consumer credit. It is well documented and illustrated. A surprisingly good read for what can be a boring subject.
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Fast food to child care: financing the road to the american dream. (FW Focus: Finance).: An article from: Franchising World
Penn Ritter
Manufacturer: International Franchise Association
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ASIN: B0008IEVBS
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
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This digital document is an article from Franchising World, published by International Franchise Association on October 1, 2001. The length of the article is 1134 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Fast food to child care: financing the road to the american dream. (FW Focus: Finance).
Author: Penn Ritter
Publication:
Franchising World (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2001
Publisher: International Franchise Association
Volume: 33
Issue: 7
Page: 56(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Franchising World, published by International Franchise Association on October 1, 2004. The length of the article is 782 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Retirement funds: a new path to the American dream: new franchisees open their doors with a retirement plan as the first order of business.(Financing franchising future: cash-to-go)
Author: Leonard Fischer
Publication:
Franchising World (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2004
Publisher: International Franchise Association
Volume: 36
Issue: 9
Page: 23(1)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Financing the American Dream
Hegarty
Manufacturer: Facts on File
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0816028125 |
Amazon.com
For women born in the immediate postwar period, there were the years BG and AG--"before Greer" and "after Greer." It's all too easy to underestimate its influence, but the fact is that in 1970 every self-respecting woman on the Left owned a copy of The Female Eunuch. Thirty years later, Germaine Greer is ready to get angry again. In The Whole Woman, she analyzes, among other issues, the invasive ways in which the health industry persuades women to have their bodies and reproductive systems "managed." Greer lays out the facts about the high failure rate and devastating side effects of in vitro fertilization and the incongruence between the "success" of breast implants in achieving the "perfect" mammary to please men and the continuing failures in detecting and treating increasingly prevalent breast cancer.
Greer's polemic has the confident virtuosity of wit and maturity. Celebrating women's successes, The Whole Woman is a more positive book than The Female Eunuch. Her unique combination of outrageous humor and assertiveness continues to lead the way forward for women who want to take control of their lives. --Lisa Jardine, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
Thirty years after the publication of
The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer is back with the sequel she vowed never to write.
"A marvelous performance--. No feminist writer can match her for eloquence or energy; none makes [us] laugh the way she does."--The Washington Post
In this thoroughly engaging new book, the fervent, rollicking, straight-shooting Greer, is, as ever, "the ultimate agent provocateur" (Mirabella). With passionate rhetoric, outrageous humor, and the authority of a lifetime of thought and observation, she trains a sharp eye on the issues women face at the turn of the century.
From the workplace to the kitchen, from the supermarket to the bedroom, Greer exposes the innumerable forms of insidious discrimination and exploitation that continue to plague women around the globe. She mordantly attacks "lifestyle feminists" who blithely believe they can have it all, and argues for a fuller, more organic idea of womanhood. Whether it's liposuction or abortion, Barbie or Lady Diana, housework or sex work, Greer always has an opinion, and as one of the most brilliant, glamorous, and dynamic feminists of all time, her opinions matter. For anyone interested in the future of womanhood,
The Whole Woman is a must-read.
Customer Reviews:
Good feminist reading.......2007-08-13
I was relieved to pick up this book after several other feminist books with the stereotypical "I am so opressed and hate men" mantra. Why oh why do those have to be so abundant? Back to the point - I was looking for something a little more balanced, and even though I don't agree with a few main points the author goes over, I am glad that her writing made me think and reevaluate some of my personal points of view.
Specifically interesting is her writing against medical procedures and surgeries surrounding women's bodies (not only cosmetic surgery, but cancer etc.) - she referred to these as mutilation. I could definately see how this issue could be different in quite a few different situations.
Also, she argues about how the role of woman as mother and food provider etc. is devalued and hard to fufill any longer. Which many of you will note is particalarly interesting because a lot of early feminism seemed to be aimed at getting women out of this role. Actually, I'm in the middle of this book and only read part one, but that's the general jist I got. Worth a read, but not any sort of feminist bible.
There is more power to be found AWAY from the home........2007-01-27
As a women in her early 50's, I grew up with 70s feminism, but never read anything by Ms.Greer. Recently, I bought a copy of the Whole Women. All I can say is, Ms.Greer must be living in an entirely different WORLD than me(at least a different country). I find her depressing, angry, and not at all accurate. I am a career teacher, happily married to a man who shares the housework, and we have chosen not to have children. I do not feel the slightest bit "disappointed" not to have children, as Greer suggests I should. I love my freedom. The men I meet in my life are supportive. I learned how to fly a plane 2 years ago, and although most of the other pilots are male, all have been great in helping me get my license.I do think women need to focus themselves outside of relationships, like men do. Studies show that men are less depressed because they don't obsess over problems and relationships, but go out and DO things when they feel down.
I think women can be TOO emotional. There is a woman I teach with that cries over everything, good and bad, and it makes me nervous to talk to her, even about business related things. I've never seen a man like that. I think when we are too emotional, people don't take us seriously.
Germaine's Still Angry!.......2004-10-11
Germaine Greer is back and she's still angry. The Whole Woman is the self-proclaimed sequel to 1971's The Female Eunuch, a sequel she had said she would never write. She took up the cause again because "the fire flared up in her belly" when the feminists of her generation said that feminism had gone too far and the "lifestyle feminists" (whoever they may be) said that it had gone far enough.
For Greer, almost everything about being a woman today is terrible, because she sees that all women are cruelly manipulated by the media and society's constructs to become "disabled" beings. So "a woman's first duty to herself is to survive this process, then to recognize it, then to take measures to defend herself against it." Mass culture has spread the "gospel of salvation according to hipless, wombless, hard-breasted Barbie" to the rest of the world with terrible efficiency so that even the "whole women" of the third world (including, presumably, the "infibulated woman who taught her about sexual pleasure") are being transformed into the dreaded stereotype. "If only all women were like me!" Greer seems to be saying.
It is this apparent solipsism that infects all of Greer's writing. She has, in one of her many well-documented tirades, accused her mother of having Asperger's syndrome but now Greer herself seems to be heading towards the same affliction.
Nevertheless, the fierce polemicism of all of Greer's writing (evident even in the autobiographical Daddy We Hardly Knew You) is stirring. She has the prodigious ability to irritate, to get under the skin, and not just of men. A friend of mine bought a copy of The Madwoman's Underclothes (also available at Penrith Library) for his wife and after she read it (she's a feminist) she spent at least a month feeling angry, frustrated and depressed. An Australian cartoonist has invented some modern-day curses, including "may your wife read the latest Germaine Greer book."
A lot of Greer's writing in The Whole Woman is poorly executed and some of it is stunningly incomprehensible (what is anyone to make of this sentence: "Millions of women sit knitting garments that nobody wants because the hours of fiddling work give them an opportunity gradually to release the intolerable pressure of their unspoken love."?), but there are passages of great fire and real beauty. The chapter titled "Sorrow" is the best writing in the book - an espousal of the right of woman to feel sorrow - sometimes only for themselves because their lot is, in Greer's estimation, so terrible. She feels there are powerfully good aspects to female sorrow, and we feel the poignancy as her wounded psyche becomes transparent beneath external rage. (Certainly she is probably also sure that women's propensity for sadness irritates men.)
The chapter called "Fathers", however, made me angry, distressed and outraged. Greer more or less baldly asserts that all fathers wish to molest their daughters: "it is a rare (non-abusing) father who can permit himself any degree of physical intimacy with a daughter." As the father of a daughter I'm amazed that she could get so much so wrong. Nevertheless, there is a deep poignancy in Greer's reiteration of the theme of being unloved. The tragic climax of Daddy We Hardly Knew You was Greer's realization that her late father had never been really interested in her. Again, because she feels this pain so acutely, she draws the conclusion that this is how all women feel - they have all been neglected by their fathers: "The boy baby learns that he can have what he wants and quickly, the girl baby that she has to learn patience. The sociability and intuitiveness valued in...girls (possibly) has its roots in the insecurity that the little girl feels in her relationship with both her parents. Daughters will develop more self-confidence if their fathers are encouraging and appreciative of their efforts, but fathers seldom give such matters much attention.."
Greer has taken a big stand against sexual equality and argues the point cogently: "equality is an utterly conservative aim. Equality is cruel to women because it requires them to duplicate behaviors that they find profoundly alien and disturbing. Men like the masculine world that they have built for themselves; if enough men had not enjoyed what they euphemistically call the 'cut and thrust' - the sanctioned brutalities of corporate life - such behavior would never have been institutionalized and women would not now be struggling with it. In constructing its male elite, masculinist society contrives to be cruel to most men, all women and all children. If women can see no future beyond joining the masculinist elite on its own terms, our civilization will become more destructive than ever. There has to be a better way."
It seems true that women should (if they only had more sense, like Greer) get rid of men from their lives and live independently (as she does, but then, she's independently wealthy from the sales of her books); then all would be well. I wonder how many women are as eager as she to cast off all association with the "useless" sex.
Don't read The Whole Woman unless you are prepared to be annoyed and maybe to take to the barricades. The Female Eunuch was a watershed in popular feminist writing; The Whole Woman probably won't have the same impact but it shows there's plenty of life and fire in the belly of this 60 year-old feminist.
A Book to Make Its Readers Angry (For the Wrong Reasons).......2004-09-22
I found The Whole Woman more antagonistic and needlessly controversial than enlightening. Greer makes it quite clear that there is exactly one feminist left on the planet, and she is it.
I'm hard-pressed to think of any third-wave feminists who live up to her standards. To do so, you would have to be an earth-mother living in a separatist commune with her lesbian lover. There's nothing wrong with that lifestyle, but it's not one to which most feminists would aspire. It's not one to which I aspire.
Also, it's as limiting a construction of womanhood as the patriarchal one she deplores. What do you do if you are heterosexual? It's all very well for her to say that you can reconstruct yourself as a lesbian, but that's as insulting as the implication that homosexuals just need to try hard enough and they can be heterosexual.
In a similar vein, I found her views of men particularly unpleasant. She suggests in no uncertain terms that they're all potential adulterers, rapists, child-abusers, wife-beaters, misogynists, etc . . . etc . . ., and that any woman who wants an equal, non-exploitative relationship had better become a lesbian. It's hard to see it as anything but pure slander, backed up by the flimsiest of anecdotal evidence. Just because you can cite a few cases of sickos who get turned on by their baby daughters in their nightgowns does not mean that all fathers will inevitably turn to abuse.
The rest of the book is no better. It's very poorly researched and argued, and parts of it verge into the insane. She seems particularly taken with the idea of "primitive" women as whole women, because they aren't bound by Western concepts of femininity. What she doesn't mention is that those women experience the same oppression that Western feminists fought long and hard to overcome. They might not wear bras or high-heels, but that doesn't make them any less oppressed by patriarchy. It seems obvious to me that women from tribal societies do not generally have much real political power, but are doomed to bear lots of children and die young. When she does look at the appalling aspects of those societies, she puts a positive spin on them. There's even a section where she seems to defend female genital mutilation.
Also, I can imagine that some of her ill-informed views are extremely offensive to people in those situations. She describes IVF as patriarchal appropriation of and interference into the process of reproduction. Similarly, she suggests that women who don't opt for natural childbirth (without anaesthetic, of course) are allowing men to remove them from the process. It's utterly disrespectful of the choices women may choose to make, not because they've internalised their oppression but because inseminating themselves with a turkey-baster seems vaguely ludicrous or because they don't want to experience agonising pain.
It's been a while since I read a feminist book that made me angry and this one does so for all the wrong reasons. It makes me embarrassed to call myself a feminist.
This is not feminism.......2004-02-17
In fact, this book is as anti-feminist as they come. Motherhood as a career? Puhhhhleese. Ms. Greer clearly writes for shock value and what was shocking in the 70s is commonplace now, so instead she decides to go the anti-feminist route and pretend it's some kind of "new" feminism.
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National Autonomy, European Integration and the Politics of Packaging Waste (AWSB - Regulation and Markets)
Markus Haverland
Manufacturer: Purdue University Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 9051704542 |
Book Description
This book examines the treatment of packaging waste: how policy has changed and how waste is regulated. It compares packaging waste policies in three major EU countries: Germany, the U.K. and the Netherlands. Recent theories in comparative policy inform the analysis, particularly the neo-institutionalist approach, which includes the notions of path dependency and policy learning. Based on intensive empirical research the study shows the impact of EU processes on national policy traditions and identifies the factors that either trigger or constrain policy change and convergence. The book is relevant for those interested in regulatory change and persistence in Europe, the tensions between European integration and national traditions and autonomy, and the interrelationship of environmental protection and the common market programme. Students of law, political science, public policy, comparative politics, and European studies will benefit from this study as well as policy makers, managers and environmentalists.
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Redefining the Third World (International Political Economy Series)
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0312216718 |
Book Description
The 14th portfolio from the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is a collectable book for wildlife enthusiasts and fans of world-class photography alike. This new collection represents the best images taken by top nature photographers around the world that have been submitted to the 2004 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Featuring more than 100 unforgettable pictures—covering subjects such as plants, endangered animals, underwater life, and landscapes—that display the beauty of the natural world. Selected from more than 19,000 entries, representing at least 60 countries, these images will comprise the winning and commended pictures from the world's largest and most prestigious wildlife photography competition.
Books:
- Focus Group Interviews in Education and Psychology
- From Good Market Research to Great Marketing: A How-To Guide for Home Builders
- Fundamentos de e-commerce para PyMEs: Compumagazine PyMEs, en Espanol / Spanish (Compumagazine; Coleccion de Libros & Manuales)
- Global E-Commerce and Online Marketing: Watching the Evolution
- Health Marketing and Consumer Behavior: A Guide to Basic Linkages
- Historic House Museums: A Practical Handbook for Their Care, Preservation, and Management
- Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge
- How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Web Site Marketing for Small-Budget Businesses: Strategic Web Site Marketing for Small-Budget Businesses
- How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients
- How to Buy Real Estate Without a Down Payment in Any Market: Insider Secrets from the Experts Who Do It Every Day
Books Index
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- Postcards from Mars: The First Photographer on the Red Planet
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- Taking Charge of Fibromyalgia: Everything You Need to Know to Manage Fibromyalgia, Fifth Edition
- California Colonial: The Spanish and Rancho Revival Styles
- Perfect Palettes for Painting Rooms: Plus Complete Decorating Guidelines
- The Book of Franza & Requiem for Fanny Goldmann
Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit
Paying with Plastic, 2nd Edition: The Digital Revolution in Buying and Borrowing
The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt
A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class
Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America
