Download or read book Century of the Leisured Masses written by David George Surdam and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American living standards improved rapidly during the twentieth-century. The rise of leisure, both in terms of time allotted and in terms of consumption of leisure goods and services, was astounding. When social critic Thorstein Veblen penned Theory of the Leisured Class, Americans were just beginning to enjoy more and better leisure. In Century of the Leisured Masses, David George Surdam explores the growing role played by leisure in the daily lives of Americans and what factors contributed to this change.