"[The American] is a mass of contradictions. He likes luxury, comfort, and labor-saving devices, but he will sacrifice his time and labor to make money to pay for them and thus get lost in a vicious circle of making more to get more... He is always ready to help flood and earthquake victims, endow hospitals, and finance schools and colleges anywhere - Tokyo, Paris, Peking, Istanbul... The American is cocky, no respecter of persons. Yet he is extremely sensitive to criticism from outside and spends good money and time on the Emily Posts of the country in an effort to find out how to behave 'properly,' what kind of hors d'oeuvres one serves at parties, what fork one picks up first at dinner. He is an intense individualist; he wants to get ahead of his neighbor and to make more money than anyone else."
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- from Amazon:
The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams
