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Overview"A definitive biography of the man who coined the expression ""conspicuous consumption"". Based on newly released archival sources, this book sets the facts straight on more than 60 years of myths and misinformation concerning the highly regarded economist and sociologist." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Elizabeth Jorgensen , Henry JorgensenPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd Imprint: Routledge Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.566kg ISBN: 9780765602589ISBN 10: 076560258 Pages: 304 Publication Date: 30 June 1998 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of Contents"In this text, the author develops the general thesis that as most of the old Second (Communist) World has disappeared, what is left is a world composed of two different kinds of states or ""tiers"": the First Tier, the development market democracies; and the Second Tier, the old Third World. A major question facing the international order is whether the former Communist states will end up in the First or Second Tier. The text also discusses the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tragedies in Africa and the former Yugoslavia."ReviewsA conspicuously flawed biography about the subversive economist who coined the term conspicious consumption. Veblen (1857-1929) wore out welcomes at Cornell, the University of Chicago, Stanford, the University of Missouri, and the New School School for Social Research (of which he was a co-founder) . The trouble was not just that he needled the ostentatious lifestyles - and organizational practices - of plutocrats in his classic Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and Theory of Business Enterprise (1904). Rather, his reputation suffered because of landfill of lies and half-truths depicting him as an irredeemable womanizer, write the Jorgensens (Eric Berne, Mastergamesman, not reviewed). Drawing on newly opened archives at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Carleton College, Veblen's alma mater, the authors recast him as a chivalric lover who made an ill-advised marriage to his eccentric first wife, Ellen; as an intellect whose unconventional views on equality made him irresistible to women; as a barely solvent academic unable to attain positions worthy of his brilliance because of Ellen's whispering campaigns; and as a sickly old man mourning the loss of his devoted second wife to madness and death. Though they strive admirably to set the record straight, the authors falter. Sometimes their comparisons are ludicrous (e.g., a disciple who lied about Veblen had something like the mindset of the man who 'adored' John Lennon but eventually shot him ). Instead of quoting passages from significant letters that passed between Veblen, Ellen, and a student with whom he fell in love, the Jorgensens reproduce these letters in their entirety, then repeat them in the appendix. Worse, by failing to admit the shortcomings of Veblen's theories, they're unable to fully assess his enduring strengths as a skeptic who subjected classical economics to sociology and anthropology and as a writer whose satiric prose evokes comparisons to Wilde. A biography of a dismal science practitioner that is itself sort of dismal. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationHenry Jorgensen Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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