The Lonely Crowd

More about the book

The Lonely Crowd was one of the most profoundly influential books of the time. Its now famous analysis of the "new middle class" in terms of inner-directed and other-directed social character opens exciting new dimensions in our understanding of the psychological, political, and economic problems that confront the individual in contemporary American society. "This book," the author writes, "is about social character and the difference in social character between men of different regions, eras, and groups. It considers the ways in which different social character types, once they are formed at the knee of society, are then deployed in work, play, politics, and child-rearing activities of society. More particularly it is about the way in which one kind of social character, which dominated America in the nineteenth century, is gradually being replaced by a social character of quite a different sort. Just why this happened; how it happened; what are its consequences in some major areas of life: this is the subject of this book."