Description:
This book explores how American-style individualism affects work, fun, food, friends, and family-a rare, tragi-comic social history of our 20th-century experiment with radical personal autonomy.
Brief description: James F. Richardson is a Ph.D. cultural anthropologist who has studied American society for twenty years as a market research consultant. He has interviewed Americans in 40 different states and has lived all over the country, including New England, the Chicago-to-Madison corridor, Seattle, and Tucson, Arizona. For nearly three years in the late 1990s, he also lived in South India, studying a very different society than our own. Today, he lives with his wife, children, and dogs in sunny Tucson, Arizona, where he writes nonfiction and consults with a national client base. He also writes a Substack - Homo Imaginari - for a growing international readership.
Review Quotes:
"Moving, thoughtful and mind-expanding."
- JOHANN HARI, NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF LOST CONNECTIONS AND CHASING THE SCREAM
"An astute examination of loneliness and isolation that sheds light, finds humor, and provides hope."
- KIRKUS REVIEWS RECOMMENDED BOOK
"...an invaluable book for understanding the hidden costs of American individualism."
- ROB HENDERSON, USA TODAY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF TROUBLED: A MEMOIR OF FOSTER CARE, FAMILY AND SOCIAL CLASS
"A moving portrait of the loneliness embedded in everyday American life and a powerful warning to younger generations to course correct."
- JENNIFER BREHENY WALLACE, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF NEVER ENOUGH: WHEN ACHIEVEMENT CULTURE BECOMES TOXIC -- AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT
"Richardson's a shrewd, witty, sometimes outraged observer who urges readers to approach individualistic impulses more critically."
- BOOKLIFE REVIEWS (BY PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY)
"Our Worst Strength is an exemplary work that makes the familiar strange, enabling us to see one of our most cherished American traditions-- individualism-- with new eyes. Dr. James Richardson not only reveals the historical specificity and psycho-cultural impacts of individualistic norms but also serves the public interest by illuminating how they shape some of our greatest societal challenges, enabling us to critically evaluate and ultimately transform the values that govern our lives.
- DR. VICTOR BRAITBERG, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE AND ANTHROPOLOGY, W.A. FRANKE HONORS COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA