Trump and Autobiography

The 1970s and 1980s heralded the rise of neoliberalism in United States culture, fundamentally reshaping life and work in the United States. Corporate culture increasingly penetrated other aspects of American life through popular press CEO autobiographies and management books that encouraged individuals to understand their lives in corporate terms. Propelled into the public eye by the publication of 1989¿s The Art of the Deal, ostensibly a CEO autobiography, Donald Trump has made a career out of reversing the autobiographical impulse, presenting an image of his life that meets his narrative needs. While many scholars have sought a political precedent for Trump¿s rise to power, this book argues that Trump¿s aesthetics and life production uniquely primed him for populist political success through their reliance on the tropes of popular corporate culture. Trump and Autobiography contextualizes Trump¿s autobiographical works as an extension of the popular corporate cul