Research Catalog

Title

Snobbery : the American version / Joseph Epstein.

Author

Epstein, Joseph, 1937-

Publication

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c2002.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xii, 274 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Joseph Epstein's witty new book surveys American snobbery after the fall of the old Wasp culture of prep schools, Ivy League colleges, cotillions, debutante balls, the Social Register, and the rest of it. With ample humor and insight, Epstein uncovers the new outlets upon which the old snobbery has fastened: food and wine, fashion, high-achieving children, schools, politics, health, being with-it, name-dropping, and much else, including the roles of Jews and homosexuals in the development of snobbery. Playing throughout the book is the question of whether snobbery is part of human nature.--From publisher description.

Subject

• Snobs and snobbishness > United States
• Social status > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-258) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

It takes one to know one -- What is a snob? -- How snobbery works -- The democratic snob -- Snob-jobbery -- O WASP, where is they sting-a-ling -- Class (all but) dismissed -- Such good taste -- In the snob-free zone -- The high, fine nuttiness of status -- To you, I give my heart, Invidia -- A son at Tufts, a daughter at taffeta -- Dear old Yarvton -- Unclubbable -- Intellectual snobbery, or the (million or so) happy few -- The snob in politics -- Fags and yids -- The same new thing -- Names away -- The celebrity iceberg -- Anglo-, Franco-, and other odd philias -- Setting the snob's table -- The art of with-it-ry -- A grave but localized disease.

ISBN

0395944171

LCCN

^^2001051623

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library