Why doesn't self-help help? Millions of people turn to self-improvement when they find that their lives aren't working out quite as they had imagined. The market for self-improvement products--books, audiotapes, life-makeover seminars and regimens of all kinds--is exploding, and there seems to be no end in sight for this trend. In Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life, cultural critic Micki McGee asks what our seemingly insatiable demand for self-help can tell us about ourselves at the outset of this new century. The answers are surprising. Rather than finding an America that is narcissistic or self-involved, as others have contended, McGee sees a nation relying on self-help culture for advice on how to cope in an increasingly volatile and competitive work world. For Americans today, a central component of working has become working on themselves. 'Be all one can be,' they are told. Build your own personal brand. As women have entered the paid labor force in growing
