The Fall of Public Man: On the Social Psychology of Capitalism

By Richard Sennett

Book Overview

"Sennett presses social theory and historical experience to his service in developing a provocative thesis: that the public world stage has been usurped by the private psychic scene to the detriment... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394724208
• ISBN13: 9780394724201
• Release Date: December 1977
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 373 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The end of the public realm

Beyond Habermas' description of the changes that have taken place in the Western public sphere, with a better emphasis on empirical and historical data, the book gives a detailed account on the rise and fall of our interacting abilities. From the marketplace to the theater, the 19th century (and then the 20th) saw the decline of «play», along with its replacement by vicarious figures, like the «genius», the performing arts «vedettes» and now the politician as someone who feels (and does) what we are not anymore able to feel. Instead of hysteria, the civilizational disease is now narcissism, the unableness to act regardless of one's inner feelings. To be read along with Sennett's other masterpiece, a romance entitled «Palais-Royal».