The Sum of Small Things - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Sum of Small Things write by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett. This book was released on 2017-05-15. The Sum of Small Things available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. How the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, and how their consumer habits affect us all In today’s world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption—like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children’s growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society “the aspirational class” and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide. Exploring the rise of the aspirational class, Currid-Halkett considers how much has changed since the 1899 publication of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. In that inflammatory classic, which coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption,” Veblen described upper-class frivolities: men who used walking sticks for show, and women who bought silver flatware despite the effectiveness of cheaper aluminum utensils. Now, Currid-Halkett argues, the power of material goods as symbols of social position has diminished due to their accessibility. As a result, the aspirational class has altered its consumer habits away from overt materialism to more subtle expenditures that reveal status and knowledge. And these transformations influence how we all make choices. With a rich narrative and extensive interviews and research, The Sum of Small Things illustrates how cultural capital leads to lifestyle shifts and what this forecasts, not just for the aspirational class but for everyone.
The Sum of Things
The Sum of Things - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Sum of Things write by Olivia Manning. This book was released on 2002-08-20. The Sum of Things available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The third vol. of her Levant trilogy; the 1st is The danger tree, and the 2d is The battle lost and won.
The Sum of Us
The Sum of Us - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Sum of Us write by Heather McGhee. This book was released on 2021-02-16. The Sum of Us available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color. WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal “This is the book I’ve been waiting for.”—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist Look for the author’s new podcast, The Sum of Us, based on this book! Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL
The Sum of Trifles
The Sum of Trifles - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Sum of Trifles write by Julia Ridley Smith. This book was released on 2021-11-01. The Sum of Trifles available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. When Julia Ridley Smith’s parents died, they left behind a virtual museum of furniture, books, art, and artifacts. Between the contents of their home, the stock from their North Carolina antiques shop, and the ephemera of two lives lived, Smith faced a monumental task. What would she do with her parents’ possessions? Smith’s wise and moving memoir in essays, The Sum of Trifles, peels back the layers of meaning surrounding specific objects her parents owned, from an eighteenth-century miniature to her father’s prosthetics. A vintage hi-fi provides a view of her often tense relationship with her father, whose love of jazz kindled her own artistic impulse. A Japanese screen embodies her mother’s principles of good taste and good manners, while an antebellum quilt prompts Smith to grapple with her family’s slaveholding legacy. Along the way, she turns to literature that illuminates how her inheritance shaped her notions of identity and purpose. The Sum of Trifles offers up dark humor and raw feeling, mixed with an erudite streak. It’s a curious, thoughtful look at how we live in and with our material culture and how we face our losses as we decide what to keep and what to let go.
The Dim Sum of All Things
The Dim Sum of All Things - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Dim Sum of All Things write by Kim Wong Keltner. This book was released on 2009-10-13. The Dim Sum of All Things available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Have you ever wondered: Why Asians love "Hello Kitty"? What the tattooed Chinese characters really say? How to achieve feng shui for optimum make-out sessions? Where Asian cuties meet the white guys who love them? Then you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll realize this book is better than a Broadway production of Cats when you read scenes that include: twenty-something Lindsey Owyang mastering the intricacies of office voicemail and fax dialing an authentic Chinese banquet where Number One Son shows off his language skills by speaking "Chinglish" dating disasters with grandsons of Grandma's mahjong partners the discovery that the real China looks nothing like the pavilion at Disney World karaoke And all the while Lindsey is falling in lust with the "white devil" in her politically correct office. But will Grandma's stinky Chinese ointments send him running? Or will Lindsey realize that the path to true love lies somewhere between the dim sum and the pepperoni pizza?
