The Fall of Public Man

Front Cover
W. W. Norton & Company, Apr 11, 2017 - Social Science - 512 pages

A landmark study of urban society, reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication with a new epilogue by the author.

A sweeping, farsighted study of the changing nature of public culture and urban society, The Fall of Public Man spans more than two centuries of Western sociopolitical evolution and investigates the causes of our declining involvement in political life. Richard Sennett’s insights into the danger of the cult of individualism remain thoroughly relevant to our world today. In a new epilogue, he extends his analysis to the new “public” realm of social media, questioning how public culture has fared since the digital revolution.
 

Contents

Love Outside the Public Domain
Dead Public Space
The Past in the Present
A GATHERING OF STRANGERS
PUBLIC ROLES
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
MAN AS ACTOR
THE IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM ON PUBLIC LIFE
THE END OF PUBLIC CULTURE
CHARISMA BECOMES UNCIVILIZED
COMMUNITY BECOMES UNCIVILIZED
THE ACTOR DEPRIVED OF HIS
CONCLUSION THE TYRANNIES OF INTIMACY
JAccuse
Notes
Acknowledgments

PERSONALITY IN PUBLIC
THE PUBLIC MEN OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2017)

Richard Sennett’s books include The Corrosion of Character, Flesh and Stone, and Respect. He was the founding director of the New York Institute for the Humanities and now teaches sociology at New York University and at the London School of Economics.

Bibliographic information