Free time: the forgotten American Dream

Product Description For additional reviews, see below under headings, From the Inside Flap, and From the Back CoverHas the "American Dream" become an unrealistic utopian fantasy, or have we simply forgotten what we are working for? In his topical book, Free Time, Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt examines the way that progress, once defined as more of the good things in life as well as more free time to enjoy them, has come to be understood only as economic growth and more work, forevermore. Hunnicutt provides an incisive intellectual, cultural, and political history of the original "American Dream" from the colonial days to the present. Taking his cue from Walt Whitman's "higher progress," he follows the traces of that dream, cataloguing the myriad voices that prepared for and lived in an opening "realm of freedom." Free Time reminds Americans of the forgotten, best part of the "American Dream" - that more and more of our lives might be lived freely, with an enriching family life, with more time to enjoy nature, friendship, and the adventures of the mind and of the spirit. Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt is a Professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Iowa. He is also the author of Kellogg's Six-Hour Day and Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work (both Temple). Review Choice, July 4, 2014: In his intriguing book, Hunnicutt examines the erosion of the pursuit of what today might be called "quality time." Labor was [once understood] to be only the ends to a means, the ultimate goal being what Hunnicutt calls "Higher Progress." Hunnicutt traces the ways in which various Americans sought to limit the hours people worked. The goal was to leave sufficient time and energy for personal enrichment, first spiritual then secular, ensuring democracy in the process. Americans have forgotten why and what they are working for. Recommended From the Institute for Policy Studies, "New and Notable" books, July 15,2013: In these compelling new pages, Hunnicutt aims at nothing less than "re-presenting" the traditional American dream as "a compelling and inspiring alternative to the current dream of eternal consumption, wealth, and work." Generations ago, Americans . . . understood that . . . the chase after unlimited wealth,  . . .  would never go hand in hand with the happiness that fulfilling leisure can bring. Hunnicutt believes that, too. So will his readers. "Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt's new book could hardly be more timely.  His central theme--that the American dream once was not confined merely to ever growing levels of abundance--is all the more relevant in an era of climate science denial and anti-environmentalism of various sorts. . .  I had a hard time putting Free Time down."--John Buell, author of Politics, Religion, and Culture in an Anxious Age From the Author For nearly forty years I have been struggling to solve what I am convinced is one of the great mysteries of our time. Beginning early in the nineteenth century and continuing for over a hundred years, working hours in America were gradually reduced, cut in half according to most accounts. No one predicted that this was going to end, much less that would now be complaining about the frantic pace of our lives. On the contrary, prominent figures such as John Maynard Keynes and George Bernard Shaw regularly predicted that a "Golden Age of Leisure" would arrive well before the twentieth century ended when no one would have to work more than two or three hours a day. As late as the 1960s and 70s, the likes of Times Magazine's Henry Luce, CBS's Eric Sevareid, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were sure that leisure would soon overtake work as the center of life. However the century-long shorter work hour process stopped after the Great Depression. Since then we have had little or no decrease in our work - indeed, the work year has expanded over the last few decades. We work about five weeks longer now than we did when John Kennedy was president. M