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While doing fieldwork in the modernizing Javanese city of Solo during the late 1980s, Suzanne Brenner came upon a neighborhood that seemed like a museum of a bygone era: Laweyan, a once-thriving production center of batik textiles, had embraced modernity under Dutch colonial rule, only to fend off the modernizing forces of the Indonesian state during the late twentieth century. Focusing on this community, Brenner examines what she calls the making of the \"unmodern.\" She portrays a merchant enclave clinging to its distinctive forms of social life and highlights the unique power of women in the marketplace and the home--two domains closely linked to each other through local economies of production and exchange. Against the social, political, and economic developments of late-colonial and postcolonial Java, Brenner describes how an innovative, commercially successful lifestyle became an anachronism in Indonesian society, thereby challenging the idea that tradition invariably gives way to modernity in an evolutionary progression. Brenner's analysis centers on the importance of gender to processes of social transformation. In Laweyan, the base of economic and social power has shifted from families, in which women were the main producers of wealth and cultural value, to the Indonesian state, which has worked to reorient families toward national political agendas. How such attempts affect women's lives and the meaning of the family itself are key considerations as Brenner questions long-held assumptions about the division between \"domestic\" and \"public\" spheres in modern society.

This essay analyses Gary Shteyngart's Lake Success (2018) as an inquiry into the formative narratives of the American identity—the American Dream and self-making—through the story of a hedge-fund manager, Barry, who abandons his wife and child with autism to travel across the US just as the country is about to elect Donald Trump as president. Building on the intertextual connection with The Great Gatsby (1925), this essay contextualizes the ongoing corruption of these narratives within the culture of unbridled individual advancement, arguing that Trump's victory has further normalized opportunism and the dissociation between individual success and collective well-being. Although this hollowing out of the American Dream and self-making renders a rather bleak picture of contemporary US, the novel suggests the possibility of change, both for Barry and America, as it calls for the re-insertion of the other into the formative narratives of American identity, thus expanding their current limits. Este ensayo analiza la novela Lake Success (2018) de Gary Shteyngart como un ejercicio de cuestionamiento de las narrativas formativas de la identidad estadounidense—el sueño americano y el hombre hecho a sí mismo—a través de la historia de Barry, un hedge fund manager que abandona a su mujer e hijo con autismo para viajar por la América que está a punto de elegir a Donald Trump como presidente. En base a la relación intertextual con The Great Gatsby (1925), este ensayo contextualiza la corrupción de estas narrativas formativas dentro de la cultura del individualismo desenfrenado, argumentando que la victoria de Trump ha normalizado aun más el oportunismo y la disociación entre el éxito individual y el bienestar colectivo. Esta vacuidad del sueño americano y el hombre hecho a sí mismo presenta una imagen bastante sombría de los EE.UU. contemporáneos. Sin embargo, sostengo que la novela sugiere la posibilidad de un cambio, tanto para el protagonista como para su país, llamando a la reintroducción del otro en las narrativas formativas de la identidad estadounidense para así ampliar sus límites actuales.

Professor Main's conviction is that an understanding of political history in Colonial America depends on a knowledge of the country's underlying social structure. To provide this he examines different types of societies in revolutionary America between 1763 and 1788: frontier, subsistence farm, commercial farm, urban. He studies in detail the nature of land ownership, distribution of property and income, relations between income levels and culture, and the extent of social mobility. Thousands of probate and. tax records are examined to provide an analysis of the economic class structure of a new nation. Traditional historical techniques are combined with a conceptual framework from sociology relating to class structure, stratification, and mobility. Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Several scholars argue that self-expression has become a salient feature in the conception of the self at the expense of a more utilitarian perception of the individual. This article argues that this transition agrees with an evolution in how the relation between work and the self was perceived during the 20th century. A historical content analysis of advice literature on professional success shows how capitalism adapted itself to the aesthetic critique of alienation by revitalising the spirit of capitalism. The old spirit of capitalism that relied on self-control and discipline was replaced by a new spirit that emphasised well-being and self-expression as a way to motivate employees and to close the gap between work and private life. Likewise, the ideal of the self-made man who adapts himself to a job was turned into a more essentialist view of an already-made man who looks for a job that fits his personality.

America was built on stories: tales of grateful immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, Horatio Alger-style transformations, self-made men, and the Protestant work ethic. In this new book, renowned sociologist Robert Wuthnow examines these most American of stories—narratives about individualism, immigration, success, religion, and ethnicity—through the eyes of recent immigrants. In doing so, he demonstrates how the \"American mythos\" has both legitimized American society and prevented it from fully realizing its ideals. This magisterial work is a reflection and meditation on the national consciousness. It details how Americans have traditionally relied on narratives to address what it means to be strong, morally responsible individuals and to explain why some people are more successful than others—in short, to help us make sense of our lives. But it argues that these narratives have done little to help us confront new challenges. We pass laws to end racial discrimination, yet lack the resolve to create a more equitable society. We welcome the idea of pluralism in religion and values, yet we are shaken by the difficulties immigration presents. We champion prosperity for all, but live in a country where families are still homeless.

Applying Clifford’s broad concept of travel, I discuss American homeless blogs as autobiographical travel writing serving the struggle for recognition of the street people. The analysed travelogues are hitchhiker Ruth Rader’s Ruthie in the Sky blog and self-made woman Brianna Karp’s Girl’s Guide to Homelessness – a memoir published on the basis of the blog bearing the same title. In the travelogues I analyse the characteristic features of a personal travel writing: travel of the self, advice for future travelers, geographic information and portrayal of society in which the travel is undertaken. I claim that homeless bloggers recounting their stories of otherness and displacement in the US contribute to (re)constructing American cultural identity their personal Self, just like many other American travelers before. Additionally, homeless blogging about homelessness is shown as the process of emplacement (Casey) – the bloggers’ attempt of making themselves at home in the world.

From the Beat poets' incarnation of the \"white Negro\" through Iron John and the Men's Movement to the paranoid masculinity of Timothy McVeigh, white men in this country have increasingly imagined themselves as victims. InTaking It Like a Man, David Savran explores the social and sexual tensions that have helped to produce this phenomenon. Beginning with the 1940s, when many white, middle-class men moved into a rule-bound, corporate culture, Savran sifts through literary, cinematic, and journalistic examples that construct the white man as victimized, feminized, internally divided, and self-destructive. Savran considers how this widely perceived loss of male power has played itself out on both psychoanalytical and political levels as he draws upon various concepts of masochism--the most counterintuitive of the so-called perversions and the one most insistently associated with femininity. Savran begins with the writings and self-mythologization of Beat writers William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. Although their independent, law-defying lifestyles seemed distinctively and ruggedly masculine, their literary art and personal relations with other men in fact allowed them to take up social and psychic positions associated with women and racial minorities. Arguing that this dissident masculinity has become increasingly central to U.S. culture, Savran analyzes the success of Sam Shepard as both writer and star, as well as the emergence of a new kind of action hero in movies likeRamboandTwister. He contends that with the limited success of the civil rights and women's movements, white masculinity has been reconfigured to reflect the fantasy that the white male has become the victim of the scant progress made by African Americans and women. Taking It Like a Manprovocatively applies psychoanalysis to history. The willingness to inflict pain upon the self, for example, serves as a measure of men's attempts to take control of their situations and their ambiguous relationship to women. Discussing S/M and sexual liberation in their historical contexts enables Savran to consider not only the psychological function of masochism but also the broader issues of political and social power as experienced by both men and women.

In 1666, King Charles II felt it necessary to reform Englishmen's dress by introducing a fashion that developed into the three-piece suit. We learn what inspired this royal revolution in masculine attire--and the reasons for its remarkable longevity--in David Kuchta's engaging and handsomely illustrated account. Between 1550 and 1850, Kuchta says, English upper- and middle-class men understood their authority to be based in part upon the display of masculine character: how they presented themselves in public and demonstrated their masculinity helped define their political legitimacy, moral authority, and economic utility. Much has been written about the ways political culture, religion, and economic theory helped shape ideals and practices of masculinity. Kuchta allows us to see the process working in reverse, in that masculine manners and habits of consumption in a patriarchal society contributed actively to people's understanding of what held England together. Kuchta shows not only how the ideology of modern English masculinity was a self-consciously political and public creation but also how such explicitly political decisions and values became internalized, personalized, and naturalized into everyday manners and habits.

The story of Hoshi Pharmaceuticals’ founding is often recited in the company’s promotional material. The level of detail varies, but the tale largely remains the same. Like many such narratives, it begins with a founder of little means with a pioneering, potentially world-changing idea. In 1906, with 400 yen of borrowed money, Hoshi Hajime produced a tar-colored salve called ichtyol for sale to a Nihonbashi pharmacy named Iwashiya. Ichthyol (ammonium bituminosulfonate) is an antibacterial and anti-inflammatory ointment distilled from shale oil and used to treat skin problems, including acne and eczema. Hoshi sold his first batch of ichthyol for 1,600

Today there is a fascination with a new category of elites: the globalized management businessman. The notion of \"elite\" refers here to a group of people believed to be more competent in a particular field than others; Jack Welsh (GEC), Bill Gates (Microsoft) are among the best-known examples. The members of this social group have their own perception of reality and they also have a distinct class identity, recognizing themselves as separate and superior to the rest of society. Newcomers are socialized and co-opted by the group on the basis of internal criteria established by the existing group members. Therefore group members are more or less interchangeable and may move from one institution— in this case a corporation— to another within the group. Whether defined as heterogeneous or homogeneous, this group utilizes cultural mythologies that serve to legitimize their status and power: these are the focus of this article.