The Cultural Life of Modern America PDF Download

Author: Knut Hamsun
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780674332225
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 200

View

Book Description

Author: Daniel Robert McClure
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469664690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

View

Book Description
Neoliberalism took shape in the 1930s and 1940s as a transnational political philosophy and system of economic, political, and cultural relations. Resting on the fundamental premise that the free market should be unfettered by government intrusion, neoliberal policies have primarily redirected the state's prerogatives away from the postwar Keynesian welfare system and toward the insulation of finance and corporate America from democratic pressure. As neoliberal ideas gained political currency in the 1960s and 1970s, a&8239;reactionary cultural turn&8239;catalyzed their ascension. The cinema, music, magazine culture, and current events discourse of the 1970s provided the space of negotiation permitting these ideas to take hold and be challenged. Daniel Robert McClure's book follows the interaction between culture and economics during the transition from Keynesianism in the mid-1960s to&8239;the&8239;triumph of&8239;neoliberalism at the dawn of the 1980s. From the 1965 debate between William F. Buckley and James Baldwin, through the pages&8239;of BusinessWeek and Playboy, to the rise of exploitation cinema in the 1970s, McClure tracks the increasingly shared perception by white males that they had "lost" their long-standing rights and that a great neoliberal reckoning might restore America's repressive racial, sexual, gendered, and classed foundations in the wake of&8239;the 1960s.

Author: Neil C. Campbell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134796927
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 314

View

Book Description
Drawing on literature, art, film theatre, music and much more, American Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary introduction to American culture for those taking American Studies. This textbook: * introduces the full range and variety of American culture including issues of race, gender and youth * provides a truly interdisciplinary methodology * suggests and discusses a variety of approaches to study * highlights American distinctiveness * draws on literature, art, film, theatre, architecture, music and more * challenges orthodox paradigms of American Studies. This is a fast-expanding subject area, and Campbell and Kean's book will certainly be a staple part of any cultural studies student's reading diet.

Author: Kevin Rozario
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226725707
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

View

Book Description
Turn on the news and it looks as if we live in a time and place unusually consumed by the specter of disaster. The events of 9/11 and the promise of future attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, and the inevitable consequences of environmental devastation all contribute to an atmosphere of imminent doom. But reading an account of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with its vivid evocation of buildings “crumbling as one might crush a biscuit,” we see that calamities—whether natural or man-made—have long had an impact on the American consciousness. Uncovering the history of Americans’ responses to disaster from their colonial past up to the present, Kevin Rozario reveals the vital role that calamity—and our abiding fascination with it—has played in the development of this nation. Beginning with the Puritan view of disaster as God’s instrument of correction, Rozario explores how catastrophic events frequently inspired positive reactions. He argues that they have shaped American life by providing an opportunity to take stock of our values and social institutions. Destruction leads naturally to rebuilding, and here we learn that disasters have been a boon to capitalism, and, paradoxically, indispensable to the construction of dominant American ideas of progress. As Rozario turns to the present, he finds that the impulse to respond creatively to disasters is mitigated by a mania for security. Terror alerts and duct tape represent the cynical politician’s attitude about 9/11, but Rozario focuses on how the attacks registered in the popular imagination—how responses to genuine calamity were mediated by the hyperreal thrills of movies; how apocalyptic literature, like the best-selling Left Behind series, recycles Puritan religious outlooks while adopting Hollywood’s style; and how the convergence of these two ways of imagining disaster points to a new postmodern culture of calamity. The Culture of Calamity will stand as the definitive diagnosis of the peculiarly American addiction to the spectacle of destruction.

Author: Cotten Seiler
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226745651
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 242

View

Book Description
Rising gas prices, sprawl and congestion, global warming, even obesity—driving is a factor in many of the most contentious issues of our time. So how did we get here? How did automobile use become so vital to the identity of Americans? Republic of Drivers looks back at the period between 1895 and 1961—from the founding of the first automobile factory in America to the creation of the Interstate Highway System—to find out how driving evolved into a crucial symbol of freedom and agency. Cotten Seiler combs through a vast number of historical, social scientific, philosophical, and literary sources to illustrate the importance of driving to modern American conceptions of the self and the social and political order. He finds that as the figure of the driver blurred into the figure of the citizen, automobility became a powerful resource for women, African Americans, and others seeking entry into the public sphere. And yet, he argues, the individualistic but anonymous act of driving has also monopolized our thinking about freedom and democracy, discouraging the crafting of a more sustainable way of life. As our fantasies of the open road turn into fears of a looming energy crisis, Seiler shows us just how we ended up a republic of drivers—and where we might be headed.

Author: Eric Avila
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019020060X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 179

View

Book Description
The iconic images of Uncle Sam and Marilyn Monroe, or the "fireside chats" of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the oratory of Martin Luther King, Jr.: these are the words, images, and sounds that populate American cultural history. From the Boston Tea Party to the Dodgers, from the blues to Andy Warhol, dime novels to Disneyland, the history of American culture tells us how previous generations of Americans have imagined themselves, their nation, and their relationship to the world and its peoples. This Very Short Introduction recounts the history of American culture and its creation by diverse social and ethnic groups. In doing so, it emphasizes the historic role of culture in relation to broader social, political, and economic developments. Across the lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as language, region, and religion, diverse Americans have forged a national culture with a global reach, inventing stories that have shaped a national identity and an American way of life. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author: Daniel LaChance
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022658318X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

View

Book Description
In the mid-1990s, as public trust in big government was near an all-time low, 80% of Americans told Gallup that they supported the death penalty. Why did people who didn’t trust government to regulate the economy or provide daily services nonetheless believe that it should have the power to put its citizens to death? That question is at the heart of Executing Freedom, a powerful, wide-ranging examination of the place of the death penalty in American culture and how it has changed over the years. Drawing on an array of sources, including congressional hearings and campaign speeches, true crime classics like In Cold Blood, and films like Dead Man Walking, Daniel LaChance shows how attitudes toward the death penalty have reflected broader shifts in Americans’ thinking about the relationship between the individual and the state. Emerging from the height of 1970s disillusion, the simplicity and moral power of the death penalty became a potent symbol for many Americans of what government could do—and LaChance argues, fascinatingly, that it’s the very failure of capital punishment to live up to that mythology that could prove its eventual undoing in the United States.

Author: Colin Woodard
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143122029
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

View

Book Description
• A New Republic Best Book of the Year • The Globalist Top Books of the Year • Winner of the Maine Literary Award for Non-fiction Particularly relevant in understanding who voted for who during presidential elections, this is an endlessly fascinating look at American regionalism and the eleven “nations” that continue to shape North America According to award-winning journalist and historian Colin Woodard, North America is made up of eleven distinct nations, each with its own unique historical roots. In American Nations he takes readers on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, offering a revolutionary and revelatory take on American identity, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and continue to mold our future. From the Deep South to the Far West, to Yankeedom to El Norte, Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how each region continues to uphold its distinguishing ideals and identities today, with results that can be seen in the composition of the U.S. Congress or on the county-by-county election maps of any hotly contested election in our history.

Author: Lawrence R. Samuel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1683930835
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 173

View

Book Description
Telling the full story of the American Way of Life (or more simply the American Way) in the United States over the course of the last century reveals key insights that add to our understanding of American culture. Lawrence R. Samuel argues that since the term was popularized in the 1930s, the American Way has served as the primary guiding mythology or national ethos of the United States. More than that, however, this work shows that the American Way has represented many things to many people, making the mythology a useful device for anyone wishing to promote a particular agenda that serves his or her interests. A consumerist lifestyle supported by a system based in free enterprise has been the ideological backbone of the American Way, but the term has been attached to everything from farming to baseball to barbecue. There really is no single, identifiable American Way and never has been—it becomes clear after tracing its history—making it a kind of Zelig of belief systems. If our underlying philosophy or set of values is amorphous and nebulous, then so is our national identity and character, Samuel concludes, implying that the meaning of America is elastic and accommodating to many interpretations. This unique thesis sets off this work from other books and helps establish it as a seminal resource within the fields of American history and American studies.

Author: Matthew Pustz
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441172629
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 297

View

Book Description
A highly original collection of essays, demonstrating how comic books can be used as primary sources in the teaching and understanding of American history.