Eric C. Hendriks

In Life Advice from Below, Eric C. Hendriks maps the globalization of American-style self-help culture and the controversies surrounding it. He compares the public status of self-help gurus in the US, Germany and China, analyzing their relationship to institutional authorities.

The Public Role of Self-Help Coaches in Germany and China

Life Advice from Below

Daniel Nehring

Emmanuel Alvarado

Dylan Kerrigan

Self-help books aim to empower their readers and deliver happiness and personal fulfilment but do they really live up to this? This book offers a fresh perspective on self-help culture and popular psychology. Research on this subject matter has generally focused on the USA and the Global Northwest. In contrast, this book explores the production, circulation and consumption of self-help books from an innovative transnational perspective. Case studies on Trinidad, Mexico, the People's Republic of China, the UK and the USA explore the roles which self-help's therapeutic narratives of self and social relationships play in the contemporary world. In this context, the book questions the extent to which self-help fulfils its promise of individual autonomy and contentment. At the same time, it addresses debates about contemporary political change under transnational processes of cultural standardization.

Eric C. Hendriks

About

Books

Join the club