Smile Or Die (eBook)

How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World

Barbara Ehrenreich (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2010 | 1. Auflage
256 Seiten
Granta Publications (Verlag)
978-1-84708-205-3 (ISBN)

Infos

A brilliant, savagely funny attack on the cult of positive thinking - Ehrenreich's most commercial book since Nickel and Dimed.
This brilliant new book from the author of Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch explores the tyranny of positive thinking, and offers a history of how it came to be the dominant mode in the USA. Ehrenreich conceived of the book when she became ill with breast cancer, and found herself surrounded by pink ribbons and bunny rabbits and platitudes. She balked at the way her anger and sadness about having the disease were seen as unhealthy and dangerous by health professionals and other sufferers. In her droll and incisive analysis of the cult of cheerfulness, Ehrenreich also ranges across contemporary religion, business and the economy, arguing, for example, that undue optimism and a fear of giving bad news sowed the seeds for the current banking crisis. She argues passionately that the insistence on being cheerful actually leads to a lonely focus inwards, a blaming of oneself for any misfortunes, and thus to political apathy. Rigorous, insightful and bracing as always, and also incredibly funny, 'Happy Face' uncovers the dark side of the 'have a nice day' nation.

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In this highly original and hugely entertaining account, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the cult of positive thinking in America. She examines the impact of positive thinking on religion, medicine, academia and the business community, and exposes the psychological effects of a world which tells us to 'put on a happy face'. From the pink ribbons and platitudes that surround breast cancer sufferers to the blind optimism that led to the recent economic disaster, Ehrenreich pokes holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ends with a rallying cry for clarity and courage.

Produkt-Details

• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• ISBN-10: 1-84708-205-X / 184708205X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-84708-205-3 / 9781847082053