The Decline of the WASP

by Peter Schrag

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671210599
• ISBN13: 9780671210595
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An insightful glimpse of Nixon Era America

The Decline of the Wasp is a provocative, bitingly opinionated examination of the American culture wars of the late 60s and early 70s. Schrag rips into the outmoded standards of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment with gusto, displaying particular scorn for the plastic-eating consumerism that manifest itself in everything from Disneyland to Playboy magazine. He is right on the money in noting the significance of Jewish and Catholic conservatives embracing the old values discarded by the WASP elite the basis for the emerging neocon movement. Interestingly, he overlooks white evangelical Southerners as a distinct group, a crucial omission in light of their rising political role in the 1970s. He likewise discounts the vitality of religion in American life in general, a common failing among pundits of his time. Schrag notes that it would be unfortunate, perhaps even fatal, if the mediating functions created by WASPs were further eroded. In general, though, he largely welcomes the splintering of American culture as a way of escaping government intrusion and business-driven conformity. While he is not infallible as a pundit, Schrag often seems prescient in his analysis of American society. The Decline of the Wasp is worth reading for both its insights into the USA of 40 years ago and its glimpses of future cultural divisions.

Should be "displacement" not decline

In this book Peter Schrag, himself Jewish, celebrates the fact that Jews have achieved dominance in the upper levels of American society. I was surprised to learn that upper-middle-class Jews once felt they were being unfairly excluded from the upper class. It broke my heart.