Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public

by Sarah E. Igo
Save 4% Save 4%
Current price ₹3,010.00
Original price ₹3,136.00
Original price ₹3,136.00
Original price ₹3,136.00
(-4%)
₹3,010.00
Current price ₹3,010.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9780674027428
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • Publisher Imprint: Harvard University Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 408
  • Original Price: USD 32.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 459 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Demography

Americans today "know" that a majority of the population supports the death penalty, that half of all marriages end in divorce, and that four out of five prefer a particular brand of toothpaste. Through statistics like these, we feel that we understand our fellow citizens. But remarkably, such data--now woven into our social fabric--became common currency only in the last century. Sarah Igo tells the story, for the first time, of how opinion polls, man-in-the-street interviews, sex surveys, community studies, and consumer research transformed the United States public.

Igo argues that modern surveys, from the Middletown studies to the Gallup Poll and the Kinsey Reports, projected new visions of the nation: authoritative accounts of majorities and minorities, the mainstream and the marginal. They also infiltrated the lives of those who opened their doors to pollsters, or measured their habits and beliefs against statistics culled from strangers. Survey data underwrote categories as abstract as "the average American" and as intimate as the sexual self.

With a bold and sophisticated analysis, Igo demonstrates the power of scientific surveys to shape Americans' sense of themselves as individuals, members of communities, and citizens of a nation. Tracing how ordinary people argued about and adapted to a public awash in aggregate data, she reveals how survey techniques and findings became the vocabulary of mass society--and essential to understanding who we, as modern Americans, think we are.

Igo, Sarah E.: - Sarah E. Igo is the Andrew Jackson Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Vanderbilt University.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us