The Soul's Economy

“[This] inspired and inspiring book sheds light both on the transformation of nineteenth-century thought and on the political limitations of social theory after the cultural turn.” — Journal of American Studies

“Displays the importance of the human sciences for showing the culturally oriented roots that run deep in American society. . . . Rich scholarship. . . . Offers a resource for understanding or even healing some of our deepest polarizations.” — Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences

“A satisfying book; Sklansky tackles a big subject, asks big questions, and offers provocative answers.” — Historian

“An ambitious, tightly argued, sometimes dense, but finally rich and rewarding book.” — Business History Review

“Jeffrey Sklansky has produced a learned and carefully crafted work that, as has been seen, carries a sting in its elegant tail.” — American Journal of Sociology

“The Soul’s Economy is a well-researched and copiously documented book. . . . Sklansky’s cross-disciplinary approach to the evolution of thinking on selfhood is interesting and enlightening.” — Journal of the History of Economic Thought

“Insightful and complex.” — Australasian Journal of American Studies

“Jeffrey Sklansky’s The Soul’s Economy persuasively documents a shift in American social science from political economy’s sovereign individual, his will grounded in reason and labor, to social psychology’s socialized self, a product of instinct, habit, and desire. Along the way, Sklansky gives us illuminating rereadings of many major figures in a century of social thought. This is an original and important book, with implications for both the history of American social science and the welfare-state liberalism it helped to sustain.” — Dorothy Ross, Johns Hopkins University

“Did twentieth-century notions of 'social selfhood' represent an unambiguous improvement upon the 'outdated ideals' of the nineteenth century? In this exemplary study, Sklansky provides us a fresh perspective on this familiar theme. His book is a valuable act of historical recovery which will also greatly enrich our present-day debates about self and society.” — Wilfred M. McClay, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga