Satisfaction not guaranteed [electronic resource] : dilemmas of progress in modern society / Peter N. Stearns.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: being cheerful and modern -- The gap: happiness scales and the edge of sadness -- Component parts: modernity and ideas of happiness and progress as historical forces -- Modernity's deficiencies -- False starts and surprises: making modernity more difficult -- The dilemmas of work in modernity -- Death as a modern quandary -- Century of the child? Childhood, parenting, and modernity -- Born to shop: consumerism as the modern panacea.

Description based on print version record.