Product Description

There is currently an epidemic of 'affluenza' throughout the world - an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions. Over a nine-month period, bestselling author Oliver James travelled around the world to try and find out why. He discovered how, despite very different cultures and levels of wealth, affluenza is spreading. Cities he visited include Sydney, Singapore, Moscow, Copenhagen, New York and Shanghai, and in each place he interviewed several groups of people in the hope of finding out not only why this is happening, but also how one can increase the strength of one's emotional immune system. He asks: why do so many more people want what they haven't got and want to be someone they're not, despite being richer and freer from traditional restraints? And, in so doing, uncovers the answer to how to reconnect with what really matters and learn to value what you've already got. In other words, how to be successful and stay sane.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #192156 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Daily Telegraph
"full of sensible advice"

The Guardian, Nick Lezard
"as Oliver James's very important book demonstrates...he has thought about the problem a lot and he approaches it in a very winning fashion...he is consistently engaging in both his apercus and his occasionally eccentric asides"

From the Publisher
World-renowned psychologist, Oliver James, tours the minds of the affluent middle classes, in search of an answer to the question: is it possible to be successful and stay sane?

Customer Reviews

Personal, subjective observations with no basis
This reads like a trendy article from a Sunday newspaper stretched paper
thin when converted into a book. The book is full of subjective, personal assumptions backed up with hearsay, anecdotes and interviews with a couple of pals. The quality of research is truly appalling and to see a professor backing the book is disturbing (or self-reverential since he has written something similar). The author simply comes up with an assumption and then backs it up by recanting stories he has heard from around the world. Everything is generalised and dumbed-down - because 2 people from Denmark say "x" and Mr James agrees with "x", then Denmark is to be hailed and England, where he assumes "y" is popular, must be wrong. The fact that a third Dane or Brit may have a different opinion is simply ignored in favour of convenience. It's all terribly dishonest given the research is so flimsy, unscientific and subjective.

As others have pointed out, there is also a misogynistic streak running through the book - women are referred to by their attire and the central theme is that women having aspirations for a career is the reason why we are all so unhappy.

It's also disappointing that the author regularly resorts to "chav-speak", relying on swear words and generally being crass. Is the reader meant to think him cool and hip?

Overall, not only a real disappointment, but distasteful too.

A book to be sneezed at
In the first chapter it becomes clear that the author set out with an answer, and didn't need to ask the questions. For me he lost credibility by using a conversation with a Nigerian driving a Taxi in New York to 'demonstrate' that Nigeria is a happier place than NY. So what was 'Chet' doing in Big Apple? Having been to Nigeria I know the answer. The author asked 'Chet', this very nice,decent man, if he had ever cheated on his wife. Did he really expect a truthful answer?

I found the writing lightweight, and the 'research' banal. Sorry, but I prefer Fromm undiluted.

no surprises
With predictable broadsheet lead-in articles and supporting quotes from the usual suspects (Self, Vine), Affluenza comes well trailed and fails to deliver much beyond expectations. It starts well - James is at his best when interviewing those he consider's effected with his virus - but the following "self-help" and "manifesto" sections are hackneyed and ineffectual. Chapters with titles like "Educate your children (Don't Brainwash Them)" are full of the banalities you would expect and the kind of meaningless semantic hairspliting of "Have Positive Volition (Not 'Think Positive') is indicative of his failure to outline any coherant "way to live".

You get the feeling that he does not really want to criticize the alienating effects of consumer culture too severely - he frequently bangs on about his private property, ingratiates himself with political and media figures and ends up leaving the reader with a forever qualified persepctive ("be successful..but not at the expense..."). At the risk of sounding like some out-moded counterculturalist - it is the total way of life, the entire perception prevalent in consumer societies, that needs to be challenged and you don't get the feeling that James is willing (or thinks it profitable...) to go this extra mile. For me - this renders all his suggestions towards a better life hollow.

To conclude - the case studies are interesting as far as they go but I feel Jame's has failed to consider the problems he detects in their fullest context. Colour supplement, book-to-talk-about stuff.