Customer Reviews

A Nation of Salesmen: The Tyranny of the Market and the Subversion of Culture

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In the tradiiton of shamans and tricksters of all ages, witchdoctors have lived with their feet in both worlds, one physical and one unseen, and Mr Shorris, the author of this book has also lived in two worlds, both equally esoteric. One was advertising, but more appropriately, a high level marketing consultancy and the other universe was literary, the apparently dull drawn out intellectualism of the journalistic writing a la Harper's and Atlantic Monthly. The book purports to evaluate the effects of market economy on culture, but this is not social science treatise, but rather a philosophical discourse in which the argument is the foregone conclusion. The book meanders from chapter to chapter, apparently without aim, but that is because it was packaged (no pun ntended) from a number of pieces written previously. One thing missing from this book is the point of reference that would show the prevalence of the marketing world vs all the people who are not working sales, but according to the latest Department f Labor stats the leading US blue collar job is truck driving while the leading white collar job is retail sales. So, the book on marketing is quite relevant. The book is dfressed up with epitaths for a post modern feel, but the glibness is too obvious to be stylish. The book's strength is a short Death of a Salesman fable that precedes each chapter. The stories are well written and illustrate different niches of marketing I wasn't even aware of. Mr Shorris definitely has a lot of experience, some of which he shares, but perhaps his talents are wasted on a philosophical treatise, when he could have put that wisdom and experience to better use writing a work of literary fiction.

I enjoyed reading the book. Earl Shorris has the courage and insight to expose the salesman in us all. I find his line on page 268--"To do this (selling) successfully the saleman has to follow the disciplines of his calling: Primarily, he cannot make judgements"--a key point in his book. Although I think it is too harsh to call a salesman a "serpent", I agree with the author that if all we do is just to sell without regard to how we truly feel about what it is that we are selling, we will be living a lonely and meaningless life.

For me Earl Shorris's "A Nation of Salesmen" is the mid-point of an unplanned, but enlightening, multi-author trilogy on the perversion of the American Dream caused by an insatiable 'hustling' and imperialist mind-set.

Coming as it does five and a half decades after the best American novel of the 20th century, Fitzgerald's "Gatsby", on the death of the American Dream, and three decades prescient of Morris Berman's concluding new non-fictional explanation of "Why America Failed", Shorris's "A Nation of Salesmen" weaves a narrative of fictional but 'teaching moment' vignettes headed with famous quotations examining the deceits of a market organized world, compared with the enlightenment of a new paradigm of human and humane thought.

Shorris, if he is still alive, would immediately recognize that the Wall Street financial looting of 2008, and the stealthy assassinations by drones have inexorably led to what Occupy could become.

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

Written just before the Web was spun, this book is an apologia for a life in sales, arguing that our politics and culture is manipulated by salesmen for short term profit. Along the way there are many interesting insights you may disagree with, but you'll have to chew on.

What a tremendously silly book. Unless I've missed something, there are only two routes to getting what you want -- taking or asking. Taking implies force (the stick). Asking implies sales (the carrot). Shorris would have us to believe that we should march evolution backwards and start using the stick again. Shorris obviously feels guilt by his salesmanship and has a need to atone for past behavior. Rather than write a book, he should seek out a psychologist. It would be more effective.