Overview

Thorstein Veblen is a key figure in early 20th-century American intellectual history. Variously described as a ""revolutionary iconoclast"", ""the father of technocracy"" and ""the best critic in America that America has produced"", his work is frequently compared with that of Marx, Durkheim and Weber for its breadth and insight. This study sets Veblen's work in its social and intellectual context, delineating its main concepts and tensions, and re-establishing the extent of his influence. In the process, Spindler evaluates the usefulness and the limitations of Veblen's views for an understanding of American culture by considering Veblen not just as an economist or a sociologist - as has been the case previously - but as a seminal analyst and critic of modern American culture, whose influence and importance has been underplayed and whose radicalism has been blunted by postwar commentators.

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9780745309590

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Reviews

'A timely reminder of the timelessness and continuing readability of Veblen's thought, this work of serious scholarship deserves to be widely read as an introduction to reading Veblen's original texts' -- The journal of the social credit secretariat.

Author Information

Michael Spindler teaches American Studies at De Montfort University. He is the author of American Literature and Social Change: William Dean Howells to Arthur Miller (Palgrave, 1984), and numerous articles and essays on aspects of American Studies.

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