“World­ly Ways and Byways” chap­ter 15 enti­tled, “A False Start” delves into the con­trast between Amer­i­can men and women in cos­mopoli­tan and sophis­ti­cat­ed cir­cles. The author prais­es Amer­i­can women for their grace and tact, where­as Amer­i­can men are seen as lack­ing in many social graces. The nar­ra­tive con­tends that this dis­crep­an­cy stems from a flawed approach to the edu­ca­tion and ambi­tions direct­ed towards young Amer­i­can men. The his­tor­i­cal back­drop of rapid post-war eco­nom­ic growth led to an overem­pha­sis on mate­r­i­al suc­cess, over­shad­ow­ing the impor­tance of cul­ti­vat­ing broad­er intel­lec­tu­al and cul­tur­al val­ues. This sin­gu­lar focus on wealth cre­ation has, accord­ing to the author, mis­guid­ed many Amer­i­can men away from pur­su­ing more ful­fill­ing, well-round­ed lives.

The text con­trasts Amer­i­ca’s val­ue sys­tem with that of Eng­land and France, where pub­lic ser­vice and cul­tur­al pur­suits, respec­tive­ly, are held in high esteem. Amer­i­can soci­ety, as depict­ed, under­val­ues the non-mate­r­i­al aspects of life due to its obses­sion with mon­e­tary suc­cess and prac­ti­cal­i­ty. This pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with wealth and, to a less­er extent, sports, is cri­tiqued for lim­it­ing per­son­al devel­op­ment, leav­ing Amer­i­can men ill-equipped in inter­na­tion­al or cul­tured set­tings. Sport­ing pur­suits are not­ed but seen as insuf­fi­cient to fill the gap left by a lack of engage­ment with the arts and human­i­ties.

The chap­ter dis­cuss­es how this nar­row focus not only impacts indi­vid­u­als on a per­son­al lev­el but also influ­ences Amer­i­can soci­ety’s broad­er cul­tur­al and social inter­ac­tions, even affect­ing how Amer­i­can men are per­ceived abroad. Despite finan­cial suc­cess, there’s an acknowl­edg­ment of a void that mate­r­i­al wealth can­not fill, lead­ing to a cri­tique of Amer­i­can pri­or­i­ties and the sug­ges­tion that a recal­i­bra­tion towards intel­lec­tu­al and cul­tur­al pur­suits might offer a more enrich­ing path for­ward.

The nar­ra­tive is a reflec­tive cri­tique on Amer­i­can soci­etal val­ues, urg­ing a recon­sid­er­a­tion of what con­sti­tutes suc­cess and sug­gest­ing a more bal­anced approach that includes the arts, cul­ture, and pub­lic ser­vice along­side eco­nom­ic achieve­ments. Through anec­dotes and com­par­a­tive analy­sis, it por­trays a need for a shift away from mate­ri­al­ism towards a more com­pre­hen­sive appre­ci­a­tion of intel­lec­tu­al and cul­tur­al rich­ness to fos­ter a more glob­al­ly aware and per­son­al­ly ful­filled Amer­i­can man.