Over the course of three previous essays, I sketched some of the origins of what I have called “the modern culture of achievement”.1 What has been missing up to this point in these explorations is a historical understanding of the context in which these origins emerged. The origins of modern success literature (and its corresponding culture) came about at a time when the quest to succeed existed in an almost exclusively–though not entirely–secular way. As Max Weber observed, the “spirit of capitalism” reached a point where it became self-sufficient, no longer requiring the religious impetus which had sparked it.2 It was in the rational and methodical reorganization of life, structured around the idea of a vocation or calling, which laid the groundwork for what I have described in the origin story.3 This is what I had in mind, when, speaking of success literature in Part I, I wrote, “the literature in question developed and emerged within a culture that already existed”. It is within the context of the larger whole of socioeconomic history that a deeper and broader understanding of the origins of achievement culture will emerge.4
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