Author: Andrew BursteinPublisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809085364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
For more than two centuries, Americans have used words of sentiment and sympathy, passion and power to explain their country's unique democratic mission. Here Andrew Burstein examines the emotional dynamic and the metaphorically rich language which Americans developed to express their guiding principle: that the New World would improve upon the Old. "Feeling," he argues, was a political and cultural phenomenon, and in the impassioned rhetoric of "feeling" we can locate the sources of American patriotism. Using newspapers and magazines, private letters and public speeches, diaries and books, Burstein shows how the eighteenth-century "culture of sensibility" encouraged early Americans to make a heartfelt commitment to the Enlightenment's optimism about a global society; it would succeed, they believed, as much by sublime feeling as by intellectual achievement and political liberty. "Sentimental Democracy" gives us a lively dual portrait of the American psyche and the American dream -- telling us as much about ourselves as about our morally passionate ancestors. -- From publisher's description.