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The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture - David E. Shi - Google Books
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture - David E. Shi - Google Books</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="/books/css/_a33f2a89320471e58c940b9287b9d4eb/kl_about_this_book_kennedy_full_bundle.css" type="text/css" /><link rel="stylesheet"href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Product+Sans:wght@400"><script src="/books/javascript/atb_a33f2a89320471e58c940b9287b9d4eb__en.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Simple_Life.html?id=-wSbGrOXJv8C"/><meta property="og:url" content="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Simple_Life.html?id=-wSbGrOXJv8C"/><meta name="title" content="The Simple Life"/><meta name="description" content="Looking across three centuries of want and prosperity, war and peace, this work introduces a cast of practitioners and proponents of the simple life, among them Thomas Jefferson, Scott and Helen Nearing, Jimmy Carter and Jane Addams. It finds that nothing is simple about our mercurial devotion to the ideal of plain living and high thinking. Though we may hedge a bit in practice and are now and then driven by motives no deeper than nostalgia, this work stresses that the diverse efforts to avoid anxious social striving and compulsive materialism have been essential to the nation's spiritual health."/><meta property="og:title" content="The Simple Life"/><meta property="og:type" content="book"/><meta property="og:site_name" content="Google Books"/><meta property="og:image" content="https://books.google.com.sg/books/content?id=-wSbGrOXJv8C&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=curl&imgtk=AFLRE72BpBUdztwwG84fcdPj5tHOX2mYshYzUnywrURYhjIzCgfgwmM8rLnD54cU-ogJ23XG_aQWNu6HAWr6w4-PMQZNVTjN6NtIYFVZKTXglv8KbdRlAGpn3gzGivPe0y4kXCJ2AT9k"/><link rel="image_src" href="https://books.google.com.sg/books/content?id=-wSbGrOXJv8C&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1&edge=curl&imgtk=AFLRE72BpBUdztwwG84fcdPj5tHOX2mYshYzUnywrURYhjIzCgfgwmM8rLnD54cU-ogJ23XG_aQWNu6HAWr6w4-PMQZNVTjN6NtIYFVZKTXglv8KbdRlAGpn3gzGivPe0y4kXCJ2AT9k"/><script></script><style>#gbar,#guser{font-size:13px;padding-top:1px !important;}#gbar{height:22px}#guser{padding-bottom:7px !important;text-align:right}.gbh,.gbd{border-top:1px solid #c9d7f1;font-size:1px}.gbh{height:0;position:absolute;top:24px;width:100%}@media all{.gb1{height:22px;margin-right:.5em;vertical-align:top}#gbar{float:left}}a.gb1,a.gb4{text-decoration:underline !important}a.gb1,a.gb4{color:#00c !important}.gbi .gb4{color:#dd8e27 !important}.gbf .gb4{color:#900 !important} #gbar { padding:.3em .6em !important;}</style></head><body class=""><div id=gbar><nobr><a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.google.com.sg/search?tab=pw">Search</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.google.com.sg/imghp?hl=en&tab=pi">Images</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://maps.google.com.sg/maps?hl=en&tab=pl">Maps</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://play.google.com/?hl=en&tab=p8">Play</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://www.youtube.com/?tab=p1">YouTube</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://news.google.com/?tab=pn">News</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=pm">Gmail</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 href="https://drive.google.com/?tab=po">Drive</a> <a target=_blank class=gb1 style="text-decoration:none" href="https://www.google.com.sg/intl/en/about/products?tab=ph"><u>More</u> »</a></nobr></div><div id=guser width=100%><nobr><span id=gbn class=gbi></span><span id=gbf class=gbf></span><span id=gbe></span><a target=_top id=gb_70 href="https://www.google.com/accounts/Login?service=print&continue=https://books.google.com.sg/books%3Fid%3D-wSbGrOXJv8C%26sitesec%3Dbuy%26source%3Dgbs_buy_r%26hl%3Den&hl=en&ec=GAZACg" class=gb4>Sign in</a></nobr></div><div class=gbh style=left:0></div><div class=gbh style=right:0></div><div role="alert" style="position: absolute; left: 0; right: 0;"><a href="https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=-wSbGrOXJv8C&sitesec=buy&source=gbs_buy_r&hl=en&output=html_text" title="Screen reader users: click this link for accessible mode. 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