Bookmark This is a feature that highlights new books by College of Arts and Sciences faculty and alumni, published each month. The November featured book is One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion that Conquered America (W.W. Norton & Company) by Benjamin C. Waterhouse.
Q: Can you give us a brief synopsis of your book?
A: Although Americans have always had a fierce independent streak, my book shows how our current fascination with entrepreneurship and all that it entails — working for yourself, owning a small business, start-up culture and the gig economy — really developed in a very specific economic and political moment in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. The key driver was that the broad economic growth of the post-World War II period faltered, and many people decided that the only way to get ahead was to go it alone. And all kinds of cultural forces — from business schools to politicians to corporate elites — reinforced that view, whether or not it was in people’s best interest.
Q: How does this fit in with your research interests and passions?
A: I’ve always been fascinated with why Americans think the things they do about issues related to business and economics and how those beliefs are reflected in politics. My earlier work was about corporate lobbyists in the 1970s and 1980s and their campaign to convince regular Americans to adopt their views about taxes, regulation and labor unions. This book applies that question to the individual business owner.
Q: What was the original idea that made you think: “There’s a book here?”
A: A number of years ago, I published a book review in The Washington Post that discussed a history of big and small businesses, and I happened to read the comments. (They say you shouldn’t do this.) One in particular stuck out, something like: “Nobody who talks about how great it is to work for yourself seems to have ever done it or realize how hard it is.” And I thought, what’s the story behind why this belief is so common yet so unexamined?
Q: What surprised you when researching/writing this book?
A: I learned that there was a huge push toward working from home in the 1980s, decades before the COVID pandemic. It was fueled by hype around telecommuting (which has its own history that I was surprised to learn) and a belief that women in particular could “have it all” by working out of their houses.
Q: Where’s your go-to writing spot, and how do you deal with writer’s block?
A: I write everywhere, from my dining room to my office on campus to Lanza’s Café in Carrboro. During the pandemic, I treated myself to a few getaways at cottages in the North Carolina mountains — just me, my laptop and a duffel bag full of library books.
For writer’s block, I think the key is just to write badly. Get the words out without judgment and worry about making it good later.
Benjamin C. Waterhouse is a professor, associate chair and director of undergraduate studies in the department of history and the faculty director of the Office of Distinguished Scholarships. He is also the author of Lobbying America: The Politics of Business from Nixon to NAFTA and The Land of Enterprise: A Business History of the United States.
Kirkus Reviews called One Day I’ll Work for Myself, “Engaging … a clear-minded account of the link between self-employment and culture — and where the path leads.”
Waterhouse will discuss “The Past, Present and Future of the American Entrepreneur” along with Bernard Bell, executive director of the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship at a Nov. 9 Carolina Public Humanities seminar. Listen to an interview with the two faculty members on WCHL/Chapelboro.
Read more books by College authors via our fall 2024 book list and nominate a book we should feature by emailing college-news@unc.edu.