At once a history of ideas, a history of American mores, and an essay in sociological theory, this book tackles head-on the most fundamental issues about the relation between self and society. Irene Taviss Thomson chronicles the highlights of eight decades of (most American) theories about individualism, conformity, and community. She counterpoises the theories with practical advice contemporaneously proffered via best-selling self-help books and, to some degree, with social survey data. Her comprehensive, meticulous review of the literature makes this book required reading for anyone who wants to do serious research on changing self and society relationships in America.
Richard Madsen
Contemporary Sociology
This is an invaluable work and worthy of [the] broadest deliberation. Irene Taviss Thomson does nothing less than document and illuminate the 20th century erosion of a lynchpin concept in Western culture: the individual self. Further, she heralds the forthcoming of what may well become its 21st century replacement: relational being.
Kenneth J. Gergen, Swarthmore College; author of The Saturated Self