1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910786238603321

Autore

Noble David W

Titolo

Debating the end of history [[electronic resource] ] : the marketplace, utopia, and the fragmentation of intellectual life / / David W. Noble ; foreword by  David R. Roediger

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Minneapolis, : University of Minnesota Press, c2012

ISBN

1-4529-4866-6

0-8166-8197-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (221 p.)

Collana

Critical American studies series

Disciplina

973

Soggetti

Environmentalism

Globalization

Historiography - Economic aspects

United States Historiography

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Two-world metaphors, from Plato to Alan Greenspan -- Historians against history -- Economists discover a new New World -- Literary critics become cultural critics -- Ecologists on why history will never end -- When prophecy fails.

Sommario/riassunto

Why do modern people assume that there will be perpetual economic growth? Because, David W. Noble tells us in this provocative study of cultural criticism, such a utopian conviction is the necessary foundation for bourgeois culture. One can imagine the existence of modern middle classes only as long as the capitalist marketplace is expanding. For Noble, the related-and relevant-question is, how can the middle classes believe that a finite earth is an environment in which infinite growth is possible? The answer, which Noble so painstakingly charts, is nothing less than a genealogy of th