000 02951cam a22003373u 4500
001 76007
003 UtSlPG
005 20260610134747.0
006 m
007 cr n
008 260607r20251929utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d
040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aE151
100 1 _aAdams, James Truslow,
_d1878-1949
245 1 0 _aOur business civilization
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2025
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2025-05-04
508 _aBob Taylor, Carla Foust, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
520 _a"Our Business Civilization: Some Aspects of American Culture" by James Truslow Adams is a collection of cultural essays written in the late 1920s. The book explores specific facets—especially the more troubling—of American society, focusing on the pervasive influence of business ideals on national culture. Rather than presenting a complete overview, Adams concentrates on examining how business values shape America’s social, ethical, and intellectual life. The opening of the book, including the preface and initial chapters, clarifies that the essays are revised versions of previously published magazine pieces, intentionally focusing on what the author sees as problematic tendencies within American society. Adams introduces the notion that, unlike European nations with multiple sources of social authority, America’s cultural life has become overwhelmingly dominated by business men and their pursuit of profit. He systematically contrasts this with countries like England, where older institutions—aristocracy, the church, and the professions—still mitigate the influence of commerce. The early chapters critically analyze the consequences of this business-centric civilization, such as narrowed social values, increased materialism, erosion of traditional professions, escalating costs of living, and dissolving ethical standards. Adams contends that while business has brought certain material benefits, the dominance of its ideals has undermined broader cultural and spiritual well-being, fostering a society more concerned with profit, consumption, and external badges of success than with intellectual or artistic pursuits. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cunknown: Albert & Charles Boni, 1929
653 _aNational characteristics, American
653 _aUnited States -- Civilization -- 1918-1945
653 _aUnited States -- Social conditions -- 1918-1932
856 4 _uhttps://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.32106000562451
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76007
999 _c116732
_d116732