Will I love The Overspent American?

Our nation’s most insightful—and readable—sociologist? Boston College’s Juliet Schorr has my vote.

Over the past quarter-century, Schor has probably done more than anyone else in the world to bring grand conceptual constructs like income distribution down to the nitty-gritty of daily life.

Her 1999 best-seller, The Overspent American, strikingly exposes how inequality unleashes a “competitive consumption” dynamic that has us consuming ever more and enjoying life ever less. And that dynamic poses more dangers today than ever before.

As Schor put it in an interview with her I did some years back, we have “no chance” at achieving… show more.

Juliet Schor has written several books that examine the social pressures that lead people to work harder than they want to, spend more than they have, and live in ways that fail to make them happy. The Overspent American focuses particularly on how an excessive concern with social status fuels consumerism and, for many people, oppressive levels of debt. Schor combines rigorous research with a lucid style. She actually makes social science enjoyable to read! And I find her work isn't just enlightening about the society we live in; it can also help us to become more self-aware about the… show more.