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The first look at self-made men and women from a multicultural perspective.

Brings gender, race, and ethnicity to bear on the myth of the “self-made man.”

Made in America presents the first look at self-made men and women from a multicultural perspective. Jeffrey Louis Decker discusses the emergence of self-starters like Andrew Carnegie, Booker T. Washington, Madam C. J. Walker, Younghill Kang, and Lee Iacocca in relation to the changing consumer markets of the twentieth century.Decker locates the new breed of entrepreneurs within the changing rhetoric of personal success, which shifted its emphasis over the past century from religious “character” to psychological “personality” to celebrity “image.” The book concludes by surveying the life stories of enterprising celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger.Decker analyzes the autobiographical expressions of famous entrepreneurs, from Carnegie to Ross Perot, alongside more marginal ones in order to examine how mainstream society shapes and is shaped by the cultures of subordinate groups. In addition, he looks at the link between self-making and nation-building, and in doing so discovers the origins of another pervasive myth: the “American dream.”Underlying Decker’s study are these questions: What happened to the myth of self-making in America? If it is dead, what caused its demise? If it lives on, what form has it taken? Written in a lucid and engaging style, Made in America uncovers the richness, complexity, and diversity of self-styled success in our time. By bringing gender, race, and ethnicity to bear on the myth of the “self-made man,” this book provides a timely and fascinating reexamination of a traditional area of inquiry in American cultural studies.200 pages Translation rights: University of Minnesota Press

The restaurant industry is one of the few places in America where workers from lower-class backgrounds can rise to positions of power and prestige. Yet with over four million cooks and food-preparation workers employed in America’s restaurants, not everyone makes it to the high-status position of chef. What factors determine who rises the ranks in this fiercely competitive pressure-cooker environment? 

Making It explores how the career path of restaurant workers depends on their accumulation of kitchen capital, a cultural asset based not only on their ability to cook but also on how well they can fit into the workplace culture and negotiate its hierarchical structures. After spending 120 hours working in a restaurant kitchen and interviewing fifty chefs and cooks from fine-dining establishments and greasy-spoon diners across the country, sociologist Ellen Meiser discovers many strategies for accumulating kitchen capital. For some, it involves education and the performance of expertise; others climb the ranks by controlling their own emotions or exerting control over coworkers. Making It offers a close and personal look at how knowledge, power, and interpersonal skills come together to determine who succeeds and who fails in the high-pressure world of the restaurant kitchen.  

 

The road to sustainable forest management and stewardship has been debated for decades. Some advocate for governmental control and oversight. Some say that the only way to stem the tide of deforestation is to place as many tracts as possible under strict protection. Caught in the middle of this debate, forest inhabitants of the developing world struggle to balance the extraction of precarious livelihoods from forests while responding to increasing pressures from national governments, international institutions, and their own perceptions of environmental decline to protect biodiversity, restore forests, and mitigate climate change.

Mexico presents a unique case in which much of the nation’s forests were placed as commons in the hands of communities, who, with state support and their own entrepreneurial vigor, created community forest enterprises (CFEs). David Barton Bray, who has spent more than thirty years engaged with and researching Mexican community forestry, shows that this reform has transformed forest management in that country at a scale and level of maturity unmatched anywhere else in the world.

For decades Mexico has been conducting a de facto large-scale experiment in the design of a national social-ecological system (SES) focused on community forests. What happens when you give subsistence communities rights over forests, as well as training, organizational support, equipment, and financial capital? Do the communities destroy the forest in the name of economic development, or do they manage them sustainably, generating current income while maintaining intergenerational value as a resource for their children? Bray shares the scientific and social evidence that can now begin to answer these questions. This is an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and the interested public on the future of global forest resilience and the possibilities for a good Anthropocene.