Inventing American Tradition

Author : Jack David Eller
Publisher : Reaktion Books
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2018-09-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781789140354

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Inventing American Tradition by Jack David Eller Pdf

What really happened on the first Thanksgiving? How did a British drinking song become the US national anthem? And what makes Superman so darned American? Every tradition, even the noblest and most cherished, has a history, none more so than in the United States—a nation born with relative indifference, if not hostility, to the past. Most Americans would be surprised to learn just how recent (and controversial) the origins of their traditions are, as well as how those origins are often related to such divisive forces as the trauma of the Civil War or fears for American identity stemming from immigration and socialism. In pithy, entertaining chapters, Inventing American Tradition explores a set of beloved traditions spanning political symbols, holidays, lifestyles, and fictional characters—everything from the anthem to the American flag, blue jeans, and Mickey Mouse. Shedding light on the individuals who created these traditions and their motivations for promoting them, Jack David Eller reveals the murky, conflicted, confused, and contradictory history of emblems and institutions we very often take to be the bedrock of America. What emerges from this sideways take on our most celebrated Americanisms is the realization that all traditions are invented by particular people at particular times for particular reasons, and that the process of “traditioning” is forever ongoing—especially in the land of the free.

Author : Eric Hobsbawm,Terence Ranger
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 1992-07-31
Category : History
ISBN : 0521437733

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The Invention of Tradition by Eric Hobsbawm,Terence Ranger Pdf

This book explores examples of this process of invention and addresses the complex interaction of past and present in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism.

Author : Buford Carson Clarence
Publisher : Hardpress Publishing
Page : 330 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2013-12
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1314791206

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The American Tradition... by Buford Carson Clarence Pdf

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Author : Robert P. Green,Laura L. Becker,Robert E. Coviello
Publisher : Merrill Publishing Company
Page : 1002 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 1986-01-01
Category : United States
ISBN : 0675009618

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The American Tradition by Robert P. Green,Laura L. Becker,Robert E. Coviello Pdf

Author : Matthew Dennis
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2018-07-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781501723704

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Red, White, and Blue Letter Days by Matthew Dennis Pdf

The Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King's Birthday, and other celebrations matter to Americans and reflect the state of American local and national politics. Commemorations of cataclysmic events and light, apparently trivial observances mirror American political and cultural life. Both reveal much about the material conditions of the United States and its citizens' identities, historical consciousness, and political attitudes. Lying dormant within these festivals is the potential for political consequence, controversy, even transformation. American political fetes remain works in progress, as Americans use historical celebrations as occasions to reinvent themselves and their nation, often with surprising results. In six engaging chapters 'assaying particular political holidays over the course of their histories, Red, White, and Blue Letter Days examines how Americans have shaped and been shaped by their calendar. Matthew Dennis explores this vast political and cultural terrain, charting how Americans defined their identities through celebration. Independence Day invited African Americans to demand the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence, for example, just as Columbus Day—celebrating the Italian, Catholic explorer—helped immigrants proclaim their legitimacy as Americans. Native Americans too could use public holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Veterans Day, to express dissent or demonstrate their claims to citizenship. Merchants and advertisers colonized the American calendar, moving in to sell their products by linking them, often tenuously, with holiday occasions or casting consumption as a patriotic act.

Author : Clarence Buford Carson
Publisher : Franklin Classics Trade Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2018-11-10
Category : History
ISBN : 0353146390

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The American Tradition by Clarence Buford Carson Pdf

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Author : Terrence W. Tilley
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2011-06-07
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781608997497

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Inventing Catholic Tradition by Terrence W. Tilley Pdf

This creative argument that traditions are neither found nor made, but are invented and reinvented in practice, is carried out in dialogue with scholars such as Yves Congar and George Lindbeck. Tilley examines the actual practices as the bearers of tradition and argues that vibrant and meaningful traditions must be reinvented or reconstructed in every generation. He demonstrates how deliberately invented or imposed traditions are often resisted. Tilley applies his analysis to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and, in the last chapter, shows how truth, revelation, and authority can be accommodated by a constructivist, practical theology of tradition.

Author : Robert P. Green
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 154 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 1984
Category : United States
ISBN : 067501994X

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The American Tradition by Robert P. Green Pdf

Author : David E. Nye
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2004-09-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780262263948

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America as Second Creation by David E. Nye Pdf

An exploration of the dialogue that emerged after 1776 between different visions of what it meant to use new technologies to transform the land. After 1776, the former American colonies began to reimagine themselves as a unified, self-created community. Technologies had an important role in the resulting national narratives, and a few technologies assumed particular prominence. Among these were the axe, the mill, the canal, the railroad, and the irrigation dam. In this book David Nye explores the stories that clustered around these technologies. In doing so, he rediscovers an American story of origins, with America conceived as a second creation built in harmony with God's first creation. While mainstream Americans constructed technological foundation stories to explain their place in the New World, however, marginalized groups told other stories of destruction and loss. Native Americans protested the loss of their forests, fishermen resisted the construction of dams, and early environmentalists feared the exhaustionof resources. A water mill could be viewed as the kernel of a new community or as a new way to exploit labor. If passengers comprehended railways as part of a larger narrative about American expansion and progress, many farmers attacked railroad land grants. To explore these contradictions, Nye devotes alternating chapters to narratives of second creation and to narratives of those who rejected it.Nye draws on popular literature, speeches, advertisements, paintings, and many other media to create a history of American foundation stories. He shows how these stories were revised periodically, as social and economic conditions changed, without ever erasing the earlier stories entirely. The image of the isolated frontier family carving a homestead out of the wilderness with an axe persists to this day, alongside later images and narratives. In the book's conclusion, Nye considers the relation between these earlier stories and such later American developments as the conservation movement, narratives of environmental recovery, and the idealization of wilderness.

Author : Louis Morton Hacker,Helene Sara Zahler
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1247 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1947
Category : United States
ISBN : 0231015747

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The Shaping of the American Tradition by Louis Morton Hacker,Helene Sara Zahler Pdf

Author : Drew Maciag
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2013-03-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9780801467875

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Edmund Burke in America by Drew Maciag Pdf

The statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729-1797) is a touchstone for modern conservatism in the United States, and his name and his writings have been invoked by figures ranging from the arch Federalist George Cabot to the twentieth-century political philosopher Leo Strauss. But Burke's legacy has neither been consistently associated with conservative thought nor has the richness and subtlety of his political vision been fully appreciated by either his American admirers or detractors. In Edmund Burke in America, Drew Maciag traces Burke's reception and reputation in the United States, from the contest of ideas between Burke and Thomas Paine in the Revolutionary period, to the Progressive Era (when Republicans and Democrats alike invoked Burke's wisdom), to his apotheosis within the modern conservative movement. Throughout, Maciag is sensitive to the relationship between American opinions about Burke and the changing circumstances of American life. The dynamic tension between conservative and liberal attitudes in American society surfaced in debates over the French Revolution, Jacksonian democracy, Gilded Age values, Progressive reform, Cold War anticommunism, and post-1960s liberalism. The post-World War II rediscovery of Burke by New Conservatives and their adoption of him as the "father of conservatism" provided an intellectual foundation for the conservative ascendancy of the late twentieth century. Highlighting the Burkean influence on such influential writers as George Bancroft, E. L. Godkin, and Russell Kirk, Maciag also explores the underappreciated impact of Burke's thought on four U.S. presidents: John Adams and John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Through close and keen readings of political speeches, public lectures, and works of history and political theory and commentary, Maciag offers a sweeping account of the American political scene over two centuries.

Author : James R. Lewis,Olav Hammer
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2011-03-03
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0521175313

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The Invention of Sacred Tradition by James R. Lewis,Olav Hammer Pdf

The dictionary definition of tradition refers to beliefs and practices that have been transmitted from generation to generation, however, 'tradition' can rest simply on the claim that certain cultural elements are rooted in the past. Claim and documented historical reality need not overlap. In the domain of religion, historically verifiable traditions coexist with recent innovations whose origins are spuriously projected back into time. This book examines the phenomenon of 'invented traditions' in religions ranging in time from Zoroastrianism to Scientology, and geographically from Tibet to North America and Europe. The various contributions, together with an introduction that surveys the field, use individual case studies to address questions such as the rationale for creating historical tradition for one's doctrines and rituals; the mechanisms by which hitherto unknown texts can enter an existing corpus; and issues of acceptance and scepticism in the reception of dubious texts.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 816 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1984
Category : United States
ISBN : OCLC:11302746

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The American Tradition by Anonim Pdf

Author : Jane S. Becker
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2000-11-09
Category : History
ISBN : 9780807860311

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Selling Tradition by Jane S. Becker Pdf

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed a growing interest in America's folk heritage, as Americans began to enthusiastically collect, present, market, and consume the nation's folk traditions. Examining one of this century's most prominent "folk revivals--the reemergence of Southern Appalachian handicraft traditions in the 1930s--Jane Becker unravels the cultural politics that bound together a complex network of producers, reformers, government officials, industries, museums, urban markets, and consumers, all of whom helped to redefine Appalachian craft production in the context of a national cultural identity. Becker uses this craft revival as a way of exploring the construction of the cultural categories "folk" and "tradition." She also addresses the consequences such labels have had on the people to whom they have been assigned. Though the revival of domestic arts in the Southern Appalachians reflected an attempt to aid the people of an impoverished region, she says, as well as a desire to recapture an important part of the nation's folk heritage, in reality the new craft production owed less to tradition than to middle-class tastes and consumer culture--forces that obscured the techniques used by mountain laborers and the conditions in which they worked.

Author : Rocco Rubini
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 357 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2022-01-18
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780226807553

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Posterity by Rocco Rubini Pdf

"Rocco Rubini studies the motives and literary forms in the making of a "tradition," not understood narrowly, as the conservative, stubborn preservation of received conventions, values, and institutions, but rather more generously and etymologically interpreted: as the deliberate effort on the part of writers to transmit a reformulated past across generations. Leveraging Italian thinkers from Petrarch to Gramsci, with stops at the most prominent humanists in between (including Giambattista Vico, Carlo Goldoni, Francesco De Sanctis, and Benedetto Croce), Rubini gives us an innovative lens through which to view an Italian intellectual tradition that is at once premodern and modern, a legacy that does not depend on a date or a single masterpiece, but instead requires the reader to parse an entire career of writings to uncover deeper, transhistorical continuities that span 600 years. Whether reading forward to the 1930s, or backward to the 14th century, Rubini elucidates the interplay of creation and reception underlying the enactment of tradition, the practice of retrieving and conserving, and the revivification of shared themes and intentions linking these thinkers across time"--