Thorstein Veblen: Theorist of the Leisure Class

John Patrick Diggins

Published by Princeton University Press 1999

Thorstein Veblen

Theorist of the Leisure Class

John Patrick Diggins

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691223315

Overview
Contents

About this book

Fired by Stanford and the University of Chicago but recommended by his peers to the presidency of the American Economic Association, Thorstein Veblen remains a baffling figure in American intellectual history. In part because he was an eccentric who shunned publicity, he has also been one of our most neglected. Veblen is known to the general public only as coiner of the term "conspicuous consumption," and to scholars primarily as one of many social critics of the reform-minded Progressive Era. This important critical biography--originally published as The Bard of Savagery and now appearing in paperback for the first time--attempts both to unravel the riddles that surround his reputation and to assess his varied and important contributions to modern social theory.

Author / Editor information

John Patrick Diggins is Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His previous books include Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America, The American Left in the Twentieth Century, Up from Communism: Conservative Odysseys in American Intellectual History, and The Liberal Persuasion: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and the Challenge of the American Past (Princeton).

Reviews

"John Diggins ... is exceedingly perceptive in focusing on the role attributed by Veblen to status emulation in the legitimation and reinforcement of power and the hegemony of established institutions and systems."---Warren J. Samuels, Social Science Quarterly

"For an understanding of Veblen pivotal importance attaches to Diggins's ... observation that `Veblen was perhaps the only American social scientist of the nineteenth century who was intellectually prepared to challenge the economic theories of Karl Marx on their own terms.'"---John Walton, Social Science Quarterly

"A most important, incisive, and readable study of Thorstein Veblen."—John Kenneth Galbraith

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
PREFACE: SOCIAL THEORY AND THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
INTRODUCTION TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xxxv
PART ONE: THE MILIEU AND THE MAN Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART TWO: THEORY AND HISTORY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
PART THREE: INSIDE THE WHALE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253