The Slumbering Masses: Sleep, Medicine, and Modern American Life

Klappentext Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer is associate professor of anthropology at Binghamton University. Zusammenfassung The Slumbering Masses addresses the phenomenon of sleep and sleeplessness in the U.S.! tracing the influence of medicine and industrial capitalism on Americans' sleeping habits since the nineteenth century. Drawing on untapped archival sources and ethnographic research with people who experience and treat sleep abnormalities! Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer analyzes and critiques how sleep and its supposed disorders are understood and treated.

Zusammenfassung
The Slumbering Masses addresses the phenomenon of sleep and sleeplessness in the U.S., tracing the influence of medicine and industrial capitalism on Americans' sleeping habits since the nineteenth century. Drawing on untapped archival sources and ethnographic research with people who experience and treat sleep abnormalities, Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer analyzes and critiques how sleep and its supposed disorders are understood and treated.

Inhalt

Contents

Abbreviations

Preface: Sleep at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century

Introduction: From the Lone Sleeper to the Slumbering Masses

Part I. Sleeping, Past and Present

1. The Rise of American Sleep Medicine: Diagnosing (and Misdiagnosing) Sleep

2. The Protestant Origins of American Sleep

3. Sleeping and Not Sleeping in the Clinic: How Medicine Is Remaking Biology

and Society

Part II. Cultures of Sleep

4. Desiring a Good Night’s Sleep: Order and Disorder in Everyday Life

5. Before We Fall Asleep: Children’s Sleep and the Rise of the Solitary Sleeper

6. Pharmaceuticals and the Making of Modern Bodies and Rhythms

7. Early to Rise: Creating Well-Rested American Workers

8. Chemical Consciousness

9. Sleeping on the Job: From Siestas to Workplace Naps

10. Take Back Your Time: Activism and Overworked Americans

Part III. The Limits of Sleep

11. Unconsciousness Criminality: Sleepwalking Murders, Drowsy Driving,

and the Vigilance of the Law

12. The Extremes of Sleep: War, Sports, and Science

Conclusion: The Futures of Sleep

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index