Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring.

Mentioned

• Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)
• Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019)
• Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016)
• Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997)
• Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012)
• New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?)
• Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859)
• Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896)
• David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950)
• Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945)
• Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982)
• Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”)
• Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less
• Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019)
• Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015)

Recallable books

• Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.)
• Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012)
• Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
• Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904)

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38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today