Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got From the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety
Written by Dalton Conley
Narrated by Christopher Lane
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Over the past three decades, our daily lives have changed slowly but dramatically. Boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and home and office have blurred and become permeable. How many of us now work from home, our wireless economy allowing and encouraging us to work 24/7? How many of us talk to our children while scrolling through e-mails on our BlackBerrys? How many of us feel overextended, as we are challenged to play multiple roles—worker, boss, parent, spouse, friend, and client—all in the same instant?
Dalton Conley, social scientist and writer, provides us with an X-ray view of our new social reality. In Elsewhere, U.S.A., Conley connects our daily experience with occasionally overlooked sociological changes: women’s increasing participation in the labor force; rising economic inequality generating anxiety among successful professionals; the individualism of the modern era—the belief in self-actualization and expression—being replaced by the need to play different roles in the various realms of one’s existence.
In this groundbreaking audiobook, Conley offers an essential understanding of how the technological, social, and economic changes that have reshaped our world are also reshaping our individual lives.
“This brilliant new book makes sense of how changes in the ways people work are affecting the ways families work. Conley writes with the grace of a novelist and the insight of a rigorous scholar.” –Richard Sennett, author of The Craftsman
Dalton Conley
Dalton Conley is University Professor of the Social Sciences and Chair of Sociology at New York University. He also teaches at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service,and he is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Salon, among other publications. His previous books include Honky and The Pecking Order. He lives in New York City
Related to Elsewhere, U.S.A.
Related audiobooks
The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brooklyn: The Once and Future City Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Free Enterprise: An American History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Promised Land: How the Rise of the Middle Class Transformed America, 1929-1968 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Vanishing American Corporation: Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe End the Suburbs: Where the American Dream is Moving Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRebel: How to Overthrow the Emerging Oligarchy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhose Global Village?: Rethinking How Technology Shapes Our World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Reframing Poverty: New Thinking and Feeling about Humanity's Greatest Challenge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Parable of the Sower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hunger Games Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lonely Dad Conversations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kindred Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radiolab: Journey Through The Human Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Left Hand of Darkness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hate U Give Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radiolab: Mixtape: How The Cassette Changed The World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Mercies: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Elsewhere, U.S.A.
29 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wanted to like this book, but couldn't. It's got recurring themes but lacks focus.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elsewhere, U.S.A. initially comes off as a more comprehensive update to Georg Simmel’s The Metropolis and Mental Life where Mr. and Mrs. 2009’s exposure to the unwieldy onslaught of emails, soccer practices, and complex-professional demands tends to increasingly fragment any clear notion of the individual (or the inner, private self). Whereas I’ve always read Simmel’s 1903 ode in hindsight as far too hyperbolic, Conley’s text does an admirable job of presenting many of these issues in a comprehensive, easily digestible manner (as I haven’t read Simmel’s writings about money, pre-modern society, etc. my reading is certainly skewered by the brevity of Metropolis). Nonetheless there seems something of a generalization about Mr. and Mrs. 2009 (he frequently contrasts our current couple with their 1959 counterparts) that reminds me of the supposed populace cleverly defined by Stuff White People Like. In Lander’s case, the subjects are presumably “white folk,” but really they’re a mere segment of the non-Hispanic White population that falls within the 24-to-35 age range, has or is working for a graduate degree, and lives in a gentrifying urban neighborhood. Conley’s approach, of course, isn’t that myopic. There is much in this book that is relevant for everyone in the US today. Possibly the most important aspect of this text is where he pinpoints the widening income gap as not only between rich and poor, but also – even more statistically glaring – between the merely well-off and the very rich. This disparity and the attendant technological accouterments tend to foster an aggressive populace that is always working. For any well-earned time off is no longer viewed as such but rather seen as additional money lost. Perhaps my unease is that I must consider this from the vantage point of my distorted segment of the population – that is, as an architect. Our modus operandi is to work insane hours so we can make less money, and attain zero job security (for you see, Lander’s peeps who enthuse about architecture while lounging in their “van der Rohe” never give me a damn call! But I digress…). If I found myself a bit detached from some of the general themes, in utilizing details/examples the author had the uncanny knack of mentioning various things that I often complain about but seemingly escape the ire of others. His acknowledgement that money-procured organ and sex transactions are seemingly the only things considered taboo in our otherwise comprehensive capitalist society is spot on. But my favorite was his experience in 1989 of seeing an AmEx advertisement in a movie theater. When The Village was supposedly still “The Village,” many of the patrons booed, hissed, threw crap at the screen, and walked out. But, as the author is no doubt correct, they likely were satiated by free tickets to yet another movie fronted by crass advertising. Everyone just moved on with their life. Around 1990 I saw my first ad before a movie – Levis Jeans – and I was equally perturbed. His mention made me ponder why I’ve only gone to about five movies in the intervening 19 years (usually dragged kicking and screaming to even those) and I realized that initially I (loudly) refused to pay box office rates to see a damn commercial. Eventually I had forgot about my defiant stand, and simply didn’t go as I was too busy beefing up my architecture portfolio in case any of Lander’s “White People” came-a-calling.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Elsewhere Generation When historians look back at this period, from the mid-90's to our present, they will, as Conley has, find many parallels between the conformity of the 1950s to our present time. There are similarities, yet significant differences as well. That is what Conley attempts to explore, the sociological effects of what he calls, the elsewhere class, the result of changing economic, familial, and technological changes.Conley works through a number of frameworks, he has a heavy marxist bent to most of his analysis, especially on the notion of commodity fetishism and economic inequality. The many paradoxes and contradictions which include the fact that despite the efficiencies of the digital world, we work twice as hard; or the fact that work has become the end rather than the means; or that the more money we earn the higher economic anxiety we experience.Some parts are better analyzed than others. The parts on social class and work relations are better than the chapters on child psychology and technology. Also, some of the historical work on the 1950s is partially incomplete. At less than 200 pages, Conley perhaps tackles more than he can chew. But the writing is colloquial which makes reading quite the breeze.Overall, I think this is an excellent book for anyone looking for a primer on the effects of technology and globalization on social relations.