The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization REVISED EDITION

by Anthony Elliott

Corporate networking, compulsive consumerism, plastic surgery, therapeutic tribulations, instant identity makeovers and reality TV: welcome to life in our increasingly individualized world. In this dazzling book, Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemert explore the culture of the ?new individualism? generated by global capitalism and develop a major new perspective on people's emotional experiences of globalization.

The New Individualism offers fascinating, but disturbing, accounts of people struggling to cope with a new individualism reshaping the world today. There is Larry, a high-tech executive ?emotionally wrecked by success?; there is Ruth, a married woman in her late fifties, typing real-time erotica in cyberspace; there is Norman, a recovering drug addict infected with HIV, reinventing himself by accepting the deadly worlds for what they are; and Caoimhe and Annie, two little girls only beginning to explore the disorientating effects of the new individualism.

This book powerfully cuts against the grain of current orthodoxies that view globalization as corrosive of private life. Elliott and Lemert argue that today's worlds are not only risky but deadly. Yet there is hope, the authors contend, beyond the complexities.

Voted into the 50 Best Management Books For 2006 by The Australian Financial Review.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[Sam Berner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially very vague and disorganised, but starts making sense in chapter 4. Not sure what the authors' final take on individualism was, as they provide too many facets. Same with globalisation. could have been written and edited much better.

[Susan Steed · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this and thought it sounded really great. I thought it was going to be about the emotional costs of living with inequality. Of knowing that a lot of the wealth that we have in the west has historic routes in violence.

There are some interesting questions in the introduction like, 'how are to account for this massive contraction between our individualist culture on the one hand, and our reckoning (or, some would say denial) of todays global realities on the other?'.

They set up some comparisions, like in the US alone people spend $6 billion on cosmetics, which is the same as the figure it has been citied by the UN that would be able to provide basic education for the whole of the global South.

However, I didn't feel the book was really about globalisation at all. It's mainly following case studies of people who live in West and sets up overheard narratives around them being less connected to people and all overworked and insecure and miserable.

Discussion of what the 'self' is I found interesting e.g. 'not feeling myself today'.

[Jeanie Behounek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book focussing on the true effects of globalisation on individuals across the world.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenged my societal views in university.