'In her portraits of people,' 'The New York Times Book Review wrote, 'Didion is not out to expose but to understand, and she shows us actors and millionaires, doomed brides and naive acid-trippers, left-wing ideologues and snobs of the Hawaiian aristocracy in a way that makes them neither villainous nor glamorous, but alive and botched and often mournfully beautiful. Her unblinking vision and deadpan tone have influenced subsequent generations of reporters and essayists, changing our expectations of style, voice, and the artistic possibilities of nonfiction. Upon its publication in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem confirmed Joan Didion as one of the most prominent writers on the literary scene. As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: “ has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing always in control.” More than perhaps any other book, this collection by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era captures the unique time and place of Joan Didion’s focus, exploring subjects such as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up in California and the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. First published in 1968, the collection was critically praised as one of the “best prose written in this country.”

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.45 x 1.05 x 8.2 inchesĬelebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didion’s first work of nonfiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is considered a watershed moment in American writing.Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux First edition (October 28, 2008).

Slouching Towards Utopia tells the sweeping story of how this unprecedented explosion?of material wealth?occurred,?how it transformed the globe, and?why?it?failed to deliver us to utopia.?Of remarkable breadth and ambition,?it?reveals how the last century was much less?a march of progress?than?a slouch?in the right direction. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming, economic depression, uncertainty, inequality, and broad rejection of the status quo. Our ancestors would have presumed we would use such powers to build utopia, but it was not so. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Trade Paperback An Economic History of the Twentieth Centuryįrom one of the world's leading economists, a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, yet left us unsatisfied.īefore 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population.

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