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Status Anxiety
by Alain De Botton
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Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage (May 10 2005)
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Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Lovelessness: Our Need for Love, Our Desire for Status
Anyone who's ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor's Lexus had better read Alain de Botton's irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents turns

Chapter 2: Expectation: Material Progress
In July 1959, the American vice president, Richard Nixon, travelled to Moscow to open an exhibition showcasing some of his country's technological and material achievements. The highlight of the exhibition was a full-scale replica of the home of an averag

Author Q&A
What is status anxiety? Status anxiety is a worry about our standing in the world, whether we're going up or down, whether we're winners or losers. We care about our status for a simple reason: because most people tend to be nice to us according



Book Description

Anyone who's ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor's Lexus had better read Alain de Botton's irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents turns his attention to the insatiable quest for status, a quest that has less to do with material comfort than with love. To demonstrate his thesis, de Botton ranges through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins.

Whether it's assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.

About the Author

Alain De BottonAlain De Botton

Alain de Botton has published four non-fiction books: Status Anxiety, The Art of Travel, How Proust Can Change Your Life, and The Consolations of Philosophy. In February 2003, de Botton was made a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France's highest artistic honours. In November of the same year, he was awarded the Prix Européen de l'Essai Charles Veillon.

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