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

by Earl Shorris

The author makes use of his experience of in advertising, interviews with salesmen, philosophy, politics and economics to construct a critical account of selling throughout history, arguing the competitive ethic has led to a nation of soulless salespeople. First serial, Harper's.

Genres: Nonfiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Earl Shorris was an American writer and social critic. He is best known for establishing the Clemente Course in the Humanities, named after baseball great and humanitarian Roberto Clemente. The Clemente Course is an "educational institution founded in 1995 to teach the humanities at the college level to people living in economic distress." He was critical of Western culture as "sliding towards plutocracy and materialism." Shorris published extensively on Mexico and Mexican history. Shorris made the acquaintance of Miguel León-Portilla, who published a widely-read anthology of accounts of the conquest of Mexico from Aztec viewpoints, The Broken Spears. The two subsequently published an important anthology of Mesoamerican literature, bringing to a mass market the existence of significant body of writings by indigenous Mexicans.