Next month Oxford University Press will be publishing Thrift and Thriving in America: Capitalism and Moral order from the Puritans to the Present. It is edited by Joshua Yates and James Davison Hunter, the directors of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. The editors have gathered an impressive lineup of authors. I am looking forward to working my through this volume.
Here is the table of contents:
Chapter 1
“Introduction: The Question of Thrift,”
James Davison Hunter and Joshua J. Yates
Part I: The Emergence of Thrift in Early America, 1630-1880
Chapter 2
“The Controversial Virtue of Thrift in the Early American Republic”
Daniel Walker Howe
Chapter 3
“The Prehistory of American Thrift”
Deirdre McCloskey
Chapter 4
“Saving Grace and Moral Striving: Thrift in Puritan Theology” James Calvin Davis and Charles Mathewes
Chapter 5
“Thrift and Prosperity”
Stephen Innes
Chapter 6
“Moderation in the First Era of Popular Consumption”
Joyce Appleby
Chapter 7
“Spreading the Gospel of Self-Denial: Thrift and Association in Antebellum America”
Kathleen D. McCarthy
Chapter 8
“African Americans, Slavery, and Thrift from the Revolution to the Civil War”
Patrick Rael
Part II: The Modernization of Thrift: Years of Transition and Transformation, 1880-1950
Chapter 9
“The Modernization of Thrift”
T. J. Jackson Lears
Chapter 10
“Thrift and Moral Formation”
James Davison Hunter
Chapter 11
“The Virtue of Consumption: Challenging Thrift in an Age of Transition”
Lawrence B. Glickman
Chapter 12
“Thrift and Advertising”
Jennifer Scanlon
Chapter 13
“Hard Payments: Consumer Credit and Thrift”
Lendol Calder
Chapter 14
“Mass Philanthropy as Public Thrift for an Age of Consumption”
Olivier Zunz
Chapter 15
Immigrants and Thrift
David M. Reimers
Chapter 16
“Saving for Democracy: Thrift, Sacrifice, and the World War II Bond Campaigns”
Kiku Adatto
Part III: Thriving After Thrift? Prosperity & Crisis since 1950
Chapter 17
“Why Do Americans Save So Little and Does It Matter?” Robert H. Frank
Chapter 18
“The Rise and Fall of ‘Collective Thrift’: Social Insurance, Economic Planning, and the Decline of Modern American Liberalism”
Steven Fraser
Chapter 19
“Middle-Class Respectability in 21st Century America: Work and Lifestyle in the Professional-Managerial Stratum”
Steven Brint and Kristopher Proctor
Chapter 20
“Thrift in the Other America”
Wilson Brissett
Chapter 21
“Thrift and Waste in American History: An Ecological View” J. R. McNeill and George Vrtis
Chapter 22
“Disputing Abundance: The Antiglobalization Protest Movement and Our Changing Natural Imaginary”
Joshua J. Yates
Chapter 23
“Conclusion: Thrift & Thriving: Toward a Moral Framework for Economic Life”
Joshua J. Yates and James Davison Hunter
Thanks for the notice about this book. You wouldn't believe the tortuous road it has taken since its inception. On the other hand, as the editor of a volume of essays on Christians and the vocation of history, maybe you know this road only too well!