Poor Richard's Principle: Recovering the American Dream Through the Moral Dimension of Work, Business, and Money

Readers of this heavy tome could be forgiven for echoing H.L. Mencken's classic riposte: ""Down With Uplift."" Wuthnow has paraded an extensive series of case histories chronicling all the strains of our times--family breakdown, disaffected children, financial insecurity, unhappiness in the workplace and much more. The author's credentials are impressive: director of the study of American religion at Princeton university. However, the bromides he offers to address these problems are a vague mixture of spiritualism and moral regeneration. Wuthnow has drawn heavily on the thoughts of Benjamin Franklin, including a portion of the title from his most famous work. Which is ironic for a work on morality, as Franklin was a well-known reprobate in his day. (Oct.)