Veblen and Toronto

Abstract

John P. Diggins. The Bard of Savagery: Thorstein Veblen and Modern Social Theory. New York: The Seabury Press. 1978. 257 + vii pp. In 1909 the University of Toronto rejected a job application from Thorstein Veblen. His marital difficulties had already torpedoed a four-year stay at the University of Chicago from 1902 to 1906, and now, at forty-two years of age and the author of two books, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904), Veblen, enmeshed once again in "woman trouble," faced the loss of his Associate Professorship at Stanford. "What is one to do," Veblen explained to friends who had become annoyed with him over the issue, "if the woman moves in on you?"1