Research Catalog

The wilding of America : how greed and violence are eroding our nation's character

Title: The wilding of America : how greed and violence are eroding our nation's character / Charles Derber.
Author: Derber, Charles.
Publication: New York : St. Martin's Press, ©1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

1 Item

Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	HN90.V5 D47 1996	Off-site

Details

Description

ix, 181 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

In April 1989, a gang of teenagers attacked a jogger in New York's Central Park; the press dubbed the crime "wilding." Charles Derber maintains that the chilling antisocial mentality behind this offense is far more widespread than people would like to believe. With a fascinating twist of perspective, Derber reveals startling links between criminal wilding on the street, emotional wilding in families, economic wilding on Wall Street, political wilding in Washington, and other forms of "legitimate" sociopathic behavior. He argues that morally these actions are different, but socially they reflect the unbridled pursuit of self-interest. Through the lens of this broader view of wilding, Derber examines such cases as O.J. Simpson, Tonya Harding, Susan Smith, Lyle and Erik Menendez, Michael Milken, the S & L and Orange County scandals, and such issues as corporate greed, screen violence, campus cheating and hazing, drug dealing, child and spouse abuse, and the Newt Gingrich revolution. In The Wilding of America, Derber makes a cogent and compelling case that wilding extends far beyond random violence by youth gangs. Americans are, he argues, in danger of becoming a nation of wilders - one in which their often ruthless exercise of individual freedom threatens to unravel society itself. But there may be solutions. In a passionate final chapter, Derber shows how Americans can rethink individualism, and how they can construct a compassionate society and a more responsible vision of the American Dream.

Series Statement

Contemporary social issues

Uniform Title

Contemporary social issues (New York, N.Y.)

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

1. The good man fills his own stomach : all-American crimes and misdemeanors -- 2. The ultimate wilders : Rob Marshall, the Menendez Brothers, and Susan Smith--prisoners of the American Dream -- 3. A fish rots from the head first : Washington and Wall Street go wild -- 4. U.S. business vs. us : global capitalism and corporate wilding -- 5. The dreamin' is easy and the living is hard : a wilding recipe for the 1990s -- 6. Killing society : the ungluing of America -- 7. Welfare, prisons, and orphanages : social wilding and the politics of triage -- 8. Beyond wilding : resurrecting civil society.

ISBN

031214069X
9780312140694
0312132905
9780312132903

LCCN

95036301

OCLC

ocm33132160
33132160
SCSB-8975593

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library