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Also by Barbara Ehrenreich:

Living With A Wild God, April 2014
Hardcover / e-Book
Bright-sided, October 2009
Hardcover
This Land Is Their Land, July 2008
Hardcover / e-Book
Dancing in the Streets, January 2007
Hardcover
Bait and Switch: Futile Pursuit of American Dream, September 2005
Hardcover
Nickel and Dimed, May 2002
Paperback (reprint)

BRIGHT-SIDED
By: Barbara Ehrenreich

How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

Metropolis Books
October 2009
On Sale: October 13, 2009
256 pages
ISBN: 0805087494
EAN: 9780805087499
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

A sharp-witted knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism

Americans are a “positive” people—cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: this is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive, we are told, is the key to success and prosperity.

In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal nineteenth-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to “prosper” you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of “positive psychology” and the “science of happiness.” Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—contributed directly to the current economic crisis.

With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.

Media Buzz

Marketplace - PRI - November 22, 2011
On Point - July 21, 2010
Daily Show with Jon Stewart - October 19, 2009
Daily Show with Jon Stewart - October 14, 2009
Talk of the Nation - October 13, 2009