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A review by philtor
Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians by Tara Isabella Burton
5.0
The quick one sentence summary: How we went from the medieval Divine Right of Kings to the modern "divine" right of self-made billionaires, CEOs and celebrities. (And how that "divine" went from being externally defined to being internally defined.)
As they say, the fish can't see the water it swims in. The author takes us through a tour of history from the early renaissance till now to reveal the cultural waters we swim in. We find everything from the birth of hucksterism to consumerism as a modern religion explained here. How we went from being defined within a community to defining ourselves and our own realities. The initial rise of Fascism in the early 20th century as a sort of performance art. Why we all insist we're individuals and yet wear the same fashions and buy the same brands.
As they say, the fish can't see the water it swims in. The author takes us through a tour of history from the early renaissance till now to reveal the cultural waters we swim in. We find everything from the birth of hucksterism to consumerism as a modern religion explained here. How we went from being defined within a community to defining ourselves and our own realities. The initial rise of Fascism in the early 20th century as a sort of performance art. Why we all insist we're individuals and yet wear the same fashions and buy the same brands.
"If the social Darwinists had envisioned human progress as a linear march toward perfection, then the advertisers of the early twentieth century helped clarify what, exactly, that perfection looked like: a whole nation of stars, all expressing their own singular, unique personality by using the same few products."