Transnational Popular Psychology and the Global Self-Help Industry: The Politics of Contemporary Social Change (2016)Hardcover - 2016, 3 February 2016

Self-help books aim to empower their readers and deliver happiness and personal fulfilment but do they really live up to this? This book offers a fresh perspective on self-help culture and popular psychology. Research on this subject matter has generally focused on the USA and other societies in the Global Northwest. In contrast, this book explores the production, circulation and consumption of self-help books from an innovative transnational perspective. Case studies on Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, the People's Republic of China, the United Kingdom and the USA explore the roles which self-help's therapeutic narratives of self and social relationships play in the contemporary world. In this context, the book questions the extent to which self-help fulfils its promise of individual autonomy and contentment. At the same time, it addresses debates about contemporary processes of globalisation as sources of cultural standardization.