Synopses & Reviews
How did a nation so famously associated with freedom become internationally identified with imprisonment? After the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and in the midst of a dramatically escalating prison population, the question is particularly urgent. In this timely, provocative study, Caleb Smith argues that the dehumanization inherent in captivity has always been at the heart of American civil society.
Exploring legal, political, and literary textsincluding the works of Dickinson, Melville, and EmersonSmith shows how alienation and self-reliance, social death and spiritual rebirth, torture and penitence came together in the prison, a scene for the portrayal of both gothic nightmares and romantic dreams. Demonstrating how the cellular soul” has endured since the antebellum age, The Prison and the American Imagination offers a passionate and haunting critique of the very idea of solitude in American life.
Review
“Smiths book is remarkably inventive and wide-ranging with its close interweaving of literature and history, its refusal to rely slavishly on Foucault, its close reading, and its refreshingly lucid style.”Terry Eagleton
-- Adam Kirsch - Tablet Magazine
Review
“There is no book on literary culture and the ideology of the prison that even approaches this one in terms of historical range and subtlety of argument.”Benjamin Reiss, Emory University
-- Terry Eagleton
Review
“A beautifully written and haunting book, The Prison and the American Imagination reorients how we think about the penitentiary, solitary confinement, and the living death of incarceration. With depth and great range, it moves with surety and passion from ancient penance to a transcendentalist aesthetic of solitude to the afterlives of captivity in the twentieth century.”Colin Dayan, author of The Story of Cruel and Unusual -- Benjamin Reiss
Review
“Through this wonderfully rich historical and literary study, Caleb Smith peers into the heart of the U.S. national imaginary and finds there the prison, with its logics of solitude, captivity, confinement, and mortification.”Michael Hardt, Duke University
-- Colin Dayan
Review
"In Smiths haunting and incisive workhe writes beautifully he wonders how a nation that has been obsessed by the idea of freedom from its outset could have become so identified with incarceration..." - Jay Parini, Chronicle of Higher Education -- Michael Hardt
Review
"How did we get here? What do our prisons mean to us, the citizens of a nation founded on ideals of personal freedom? What do we expect them to accomplish, and why? These questions lie at the heart of [Smiths] mesmerizing new book..." - Macy Halfor,
New Yorker, Book Bench Blog
-- Jay Parini - Chronicle of Higher Education
Review
'\"As Richard Sennett makes clear in this lucid and compelling book, craftsmanship once connected people to their work by conferring pride and meaning. The loss of craftsmanshipand of a society that values ithas impoverished us in ways we have long forgotten but Sennett helps us understand.\"Robert B. Reich, Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, and author of
Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life -- Len Krisak - Translation and Literature'
Review
'“Eloquent and persuasive.”Scott Nesbit,
Culture
-- Robert B. Reich'
Review
'\"In The Craftsman [Sennett] compellingly explores the universe of skilled work, where the desire to do a job well done for its own sake still flourishes.\"Brian C. Anderson, Wall Street Journal -- Scott Nesbit - Culture'
Review
'\"An inquiring, intelligent look at how the work of the hand informs the work of the mind.\"New York Times Book Review (Editors Choice) -- Brian C. Anderson - Wall Street Journal'
Review
'\"I am confident that as Sennett continues his quest to make sense of life and work, those of us who study the digital age will find it worthwhile to pay more attention to his body of work.\"Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Chronicle Review -- New York Times Book Review'
Review
'\"This book challenges our thinking and understanding concerning how we create work and workplaces, and how we make social and political choices about what we produce and consume. Sennett reaches out to the craftsman in all of us.\"James H. Dulebohn, People & Strategy -- Siva Vaidhyanathan - The Chronicle Review'
Review
'\"Richard Sennett is one of the most eminent and prolific sociologists in the Western world. . . . [His readers] are led gradually and effortlessly into a special world, only to find themselves enthralled by an author who stimulates and fascinates at every turn.\"Daisaburo Hashizume, The American Interest -- James H. Dulebohn - People and Strategy'
Review
'\"A far-roving intellectual adventure.\"Julian Bell, New York Review of Books -- Daisaburo Hashizume - The American Interest'
Review
'Richard Sennett is the winner of the 2010 Spinoza Prize, sponsored by the International Spinoza Award Foundation -- Julian Bell - New York Review of Books'
Synopsis
The winner of France's prestigious Prix Femina Essai (2009), this imaginative and captivating book explores the many dimensions of the room in which we spend so much of our lives--the bedroom. Eminent cultural historian Michelle Perrot traces the evolution of the bedroom from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans to today, examining its myriad forms and functions, from royal king's chamber to child's sleeping quarters to lovers' trysting place to monk's cell. The history of women, so eager for a room of their own, and that of prisons, where the principal cause of suffering is the lack of privacy, is interwoven with a reflection on secrecy, walls, the night and its mysteries.
Drawing from a wide range of sources, including architectural and design treatises, private journals, novels, memoirs, and correspondences, Perrot's engaging book follows the many roads that lead to the bedroom--birth, sex, illness, death--in its endeavor to expose the most intimate, nocturnal side of human history.
Synopsis
An erudite and highly enjoyable exploration of the most intriguing of personal spaces, from Greek and Roman antiquity through today The winner of France's prestigious Prix Femina Essai (2009), this imaginative and captivating book explores the many dimensions of the room in which we spend so much of our lives--the bedroom. Eminent cultural historian Michelle Perrot traces the evolution of the bedroom from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans to today, examining its myriad forms and functions, from royal king's chamber to child's sleeping quarters to lovers' trysting place to monk's cell. The history of women, so eager for a room of their own, and that of prisons, where the principal cause of suffering is the lack of privacy, is interwoven with a reflection on secrecy, walls, the night and its mysteries.
Drawing from a wide range of sources, including architectural and design treatises, private journals, novels, memoirs, and correspondences, Perrot's engaging book follows the many roads that lead to the bedroom--birth, sex, illness, death--in its endeavor to expose the most intimate, nocturnal side of human history.
Synopsis
'
In his most ambitious book to date, Richard Sennett offers an original perspective on craftsmanship and its close connections to work and ethical values\n
'
About the Author
'
Richard Sennett is professor of sociology at New York University and at The London School of Economics. Before becoming a sociologist, he studied music professionally. He has received many awards and honors, most recently the 2006 Hegel Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities and social sciences. '