Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #326370 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .1 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Using conversational interviews with 88 white, middle-class, mostly middle-aged suburbanites from the San Jose area in 1980-1981, California sociology professor Swidler attempts to determine how people use cultural meanings in their everyday lives. While this is an extremely narrow group from which to draw any general conclusions, Swidler characterizes them as "not so much `typical' as `prototypical' Americans," who represent not what meanings their culture gives them, but how they apply those meanings. Perhaps anticipating critics who might question the contemporary value of remarks made 20 years ago, Swidler questionably asserts that all people from all times and places use cultural messages in the same ways, regardless of how those messages might vary in content. Among her insights are that "happy" people in "settled" times avoid examining cultural meanings or challenging them even if they don't actually believe them. Conversely, in "unsettled" times (adolescence, divorce, political unrest), people question the culture more actively, Swidler contends, to search for answers or solutions to issues, problems or unhappiness. Though this volume may appeal to a trade audience, it reads like a textbook, with citations within the text that interrupt the flow of the narrative. Unlike authors such as Deborah Tannen, who have made sociological concepts accessible and appealing to mainstream audiences, Swidler offers a dry, scholarly view of what might otherwise have been a fascinating topic.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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