Avoiding Politics - How Americans Produce Apathy in Everyday Life

List of contents

Acknowledgements; 1. The mysterious shrinking circle of concern; 2. Volunteers trying to make sense of the world; 3. 'Close to home' and 'for the children': trying really hard not to care; 4. Humour, nostalgia and commercial culture in the postmodern public sphere; 5. Creating ignorance and memorizing facts: how Buffaloes understood politics; 6. Strenuous disengagement and cynical chic solidarity; 7. Activists carving out a place in the public sphere for discussion; 8. Newspapers in the cycle of political evaporation; 9. The evaporation of politics in the US public sphere; Appendices; Notes; References; Index.

Summary

A unique and vivid study of American civic life which shows how citizens talk politics in private, while avoiding politics in public. Nina Eliasoph challenges received ideas about culture, power, and democracy and exposes the hard work of producing political apathy.

Product details

• Authors: Nina Eliasoph, Nina (Professor Eliasoph
• Assisted by: Jeffrey C. Alexander (Editor), Steven Seidman (Editor)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 13.08.1998
• EAN: 9780521587594
• ISBN: 978-0-521-58759-4
• No. of pages: 344
• Series: Cambridge Cultural Social Stud; Cambridge Cultural Social Stud
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Politics; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education