When and why did it become chic for members of the white middle and upper classes to perceive and value themselves as neurotic, primitive, and emotionally fragile? Is the popular tendency to define the self in psychological language derived from revealed (Freudian) "truths," or does American culture for various purposes invent and promote "emotional" and "psychological" identities?
In this fascinating book, distinguished interdisciplinary scholars show that the ways Americans imagine "innerness" and emotions have been shaped by mass media, economics, domesticity, and the arts. The authors...