Book dossier

The Fall of Public Man

by Richard Sennett

A landmark study of urban society, reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication with a new epilogue by the author. A sweeping, farsighted study of the changing nature of public culture and urban society, The Fall of Public Man spans more than two centuries of Western sociopolitical evolution and investigates the causes of our declining involvement in political life. Richard Sennett’s insights into the danger of the cult of individualism remain thoroughly relevant to our world today. In a new epilogue, he extends his analysis to the new “public” realm of social media, questioning how public culture has fared since the digital revolution.