Inventing The American Way

Author : Wendy L. Wall
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199736829
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing the "American Way" written by Wendy L. Wall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of World War II, Americans developed an unusually deep and all-encompassing national unity, as postwar affluence and the Cold War combined to naturally produce a remarkable level of agreement about the nation's core values. Or so the story has long been told. Inventing the "American Way" challenges this vision of inevitable consensus. Americans, as Wendy Wall argues in this innovative book, were united, not so much by identical beliefs, as by a shared conviction that a distinctive "American Way" existed and that the affirmation of such common ground was essential to the future of the nation. Moreover, the roots of consensus politics lie not in the Cold War era, but in the turbulent decade that preceded U.S. entry into World War II. The social and economic chaos of the Depression years alarmed a diverse array of groups, as did the rise of two "alien" ideologies: fascism and communism. In this context, Americans of divergent backgrounds and beliefs seized on the notion of a unifying "American Way" and sought to convince their fellow citizens of its merits. Wall traces the competing efforts of business groups, politicians, leftist intellectuals, interfaith proponents, civil rights activists, and many others over nearly three decades to shape public understandings of the "American Way." Along the way, she explores the politics behind cultural productions ranging from The Adventures of Superman to the Freedom Train that circled the nation in the late 1940s. She highlights the intense debate that erupted over the term "democracy" after World War II, and identifies the origins of phrases such as "free enterprise" and the "Judeo-Christian tradition" that remain central to American political life. By uncovering the culture wars of the mid-twentieth century, this book sheds new light on a period that proved pivotal for American national identity and that remains the unspoken backdrop for debates over multiculturalism, national unity, and public values today.

Author : James J. Farrell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920 written by James J. Farrell and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study in religion, culture, and social change. Taking the position that death is a cultural event, James J. Farrell examines the historical roots of contemporary American attitudes toward and practices concerning death. Middle-class Victorians tried to assuage their fear by making death appear natural, painless, predictable, beautiful, and ultimately inconspicuous. Scientific naturalism was a crucial catalyst of this transformation. Naturalists redefined death, the medical profession called for the establishment of rural cemeteries, and the sanitary science movement influenced embalming methods and funeral practices. The main part of this work describes and analyzes the convergence of the intellectual and social trends that changed American beliefs and behavior concerning death. The penultimate chapter focuses on Vermilion County, and the development of funeral practices in that specific place. The author uses local sources to add an empirical dimension to the intellectual history that characterizes the rest of the book. -- From publisher's description.

Author : Jill E. Pearlman
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 9780813926025
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing American Modernism written by Jill E. Pearlman and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this book Jill Pearlman argues that Gropius did not effect changes alone and, further, that the Harvard Graduate School of Design was not merely an offshoot of the Bauhaus. - She offers a crucial missing piece to the story - and to the history of modern architecture - by focusing on Joseph Hudnut, the school's dean and founder."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Carol Berkin
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780156028721
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Brilliant Solution written by Carol Berkin and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revisiting all the original documents and using her deep knowledge of eighteenth-century history and politics, Carol Berkin takes a fresh look at the men who framed the Constitution, the issues they faced, and the times they lived in. Berkin transports the reader into the hearts and minds of the founders, exposing their fears and their limited expectations of success.

Author : Matthew H. Hersch
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137025298
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing the American Astronaut written by Matthew H. Hersch and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-10-08 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who were the men who led America's first expeditions into space? Soldiers? Daredevils? The public sometimes imagined them that way: heroic military men and hot-shot pilots without the capacity for doubt, fear, or worry. However, early astronauts were hard-working and determined professionals - 'organization men' - who were calm, calculating, and highly attuned to the politics and celebrity of the Space Race. Many would have been at home in corporate America - and until the first rockets carried humans into space, some seemed to be headed there. Instead, they strapped themselves to missiles and blasted skyward, returning with a smile and an inspiring word for the press. From the early days of Project Mercury to the last moon landing, this lively history demystifies the American astronaut while revealing the warring personalities, raw ambition, and complex motives of the men who were the public face of the space program.

Author : Edmund S. Morgan
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393347494
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing the People: The Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America written by Edmund S. Morgan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1989-09-17 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The best explanation that I have seen for our distinctive combination of faith, hope and naiveté concerning the governmental process." —Michael Kamman, Washington Post This book makes the provocative case here that America has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. His landmark analysis shows how the notion of popular sovereignty—the unexpected offspring of an older, equally fictional notion, the "divine right of kings"—has worked in our history and remains a political force today.

Author : David E. Brown
Publisher : Mit Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262523493
Total Pages : 221 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing Modern America written by David E. Brown and published by Mit Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles thirty-five inventors whose various innovations changed life in modern America.

Author : Gore Vidal
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300127928
Total Pages : 166 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing a Nation written by Gore Vidal and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This New York Times bestseller offers “an unblinking view of our national heroes by one who cherishes them, warts and all” (New York Review of Books). In Inventing a Nation, National Book Award winner Gore Vidal transports the reader into the minds, the living rooms (and bedrooms), the convention halls, and the salons of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others. We come to know these men, through Vidal’s splendid prose, in ways we have not up to now—their opinions of each other, their worries about money, their concerns about creating a viable democracy. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. He also illuminates the force and weight of the documents they wrote, the speeches they delivered, and the institutions of government by which we still live. More than two centuries later, America is still largely governed by the ideas championed by this triumvirate. The author of Burr and Lincoln, one of the master stylists of American literature and most acute observers of American life, turns his immense literary and historiographic talent to a portrait of these formidable men

Author : Darin Gibby
Publisher : Morgan James Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1614480486
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why America Has Stopped Inventing written by Darin Gibby and published by Morgan James Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Has America Stopped Inventing? takes a close look at why America’s 200 year experiment with patents appears to be failing, and why America has all but stopped inventing. It explains why our over-legislated patent system has snuffed out any incentive to invent desperately needed technologies, such as new forms of clean energy. Why Has America Stopped Inventing? shows how this happened by comparing the experiences of America’s most successful 19th century inventors with those of today.

Author : Laura E. Gómez
Publisher : The New Press
ISBN 13 : 1620977664
Total Pages : 137 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inventing Latinos written by Laura E. Gómez and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2022-09-06 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR An NPR Best Book of the Year, exploring the impact of Latinos’ new collective racial identity on the way Americans understand race, with a new afterword by the author Who are Latinos and where do they fit in America’s racial order? In this “timely and important examination of Latinx identity” (Ms.), Laura E. Gómez, a leading critical race scholar, argues that it is only recently that Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and others are seeing themselves (and being seen by others) under the banner of a cohesive racial identity. And the catalyst for this emergent identity, she argues, has been the ferocity of anti-Latino racism. In what Booklist calls “an incisive study of history, complex interrogation of racial construction, and sophisticated legal argument,” Gómez “packs a knockout punch” (Publishers Weekly), illuminating for readers the fascinating race-making, unmaking, and re-making processes that Latinos have undergone over time, indelibly changing the way race functions in this country. Building on the “insightful and well-researched” (Kirkus Reviews) material of the original, the paperback features a new afterword in which the author analyzes results of the 2020 Census, providing brilliant, timely insight about how Latinos have come to self-identify.