Inventing The American Way

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Inventing the "American Way"

Author : Wendy L. Wall
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2009-09-03
Category : History
ISBN : 0199736820

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Inventing the "American Way" by Wendy L. Wall Pdf

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.

Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920

Author : James J. Farrell
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 1980
Category : Social Science
ISBN : UOM:39015010158866

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Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830-1920 by James J. Farrell Pdf

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.

Inventing American Modernism

Author : Jill E. Pearlman
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 0813926025

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Inventing American Modernism by Jill E. Pearlman Pdf

"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.

The Contest over National Security

Author : Peter Roady
Publisher : Harvard University Press - T
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2024-03-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674296930

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The Contest over National Security by Peter Roady Pdf

A new history shows how FDR developed a vision of national security focused not just on protecting Americans against physical attack but also on ensuring their economic well-being—and how the nascent conservative movement won the battle to narrow its meaning, durably reshaping US politics. Americans take for granted that national security comprises physical defense against attacks. But the concept of national security once meant something more. Franklin Roosevelt’s vision for national security, Peter Roady argues, promised an alternate path for the United States by devoting as much attention to economic want as to foreign threats. The Contest over National Security shows how a burgeoning conservative movement and power-hungry foreign policy establishment together defeated FDR’s plans for a comprehensive national security state and inaugurated the narrower approach to national security that has dominated ever since. In the 1930s, Roosevelt and his advisors, hoping to save the United States from fascism and communism, argued that national security entailed protection from both physical attack and economic want. Roosevelt’s opponents responded by promoting a more limited national security state privileging military defense over domestic economic policy. Conservatives brought numerous concerns to bear through an enormous public relations offensive, asserting not just that Roosevelt’s plans threatened individual freedom but also that the government was less competent than the private sector and incapable of delivering economic security. This contest to define the government’s national security responsibilities in law and in the public mind, Roady reveals, explains why the United States developed separate and imbalanced national security and welfare states, with far-reaching consequences. By recovering FDR’s forgotten vision, Roady restores a more expansive understanding of national security’s meanings as Americans today face the great challenges of their times.

Inventing Latinos

Author : Laura E. Gómez
Publisher : The New Press
Page : 137 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2022-09-06
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781620977668

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Inventing Latinos by Laura E. Gómez Pdf

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.

Inventing Modern America

Author : David E. Brown
Publisher : Mit Press
Page : 221 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0262523493

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Inventing Modern America by David E. Brown Pdf

Profiles thirty-five inventors whose various innovations changed life in modern America.

Inventing a Nation

Author : Gore Vidal
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 166 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2008-10-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780300127928

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Inventing a Nation by Gore Vidal Pdf

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

Inventing American Religion

Author : Robert Wuthnow
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780190258900

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Inventing American Religion by Robert Wuthnow Pdf

Today, a billion-dollar-a-year polling industry floods the media with information. Pollsters tell us not only which political candidates will win, but how we are practicing our faith. How many Americans went to church last week? Have they been born again? Is Jesus as popular as Harry Potter? Polls tell us that 40 percent of Americans attend religious services each week. They show that African Americans are no more religious than white Americans, and that Jews are abandoning their religion in record numbers. According to leading sociologist Robert Wuthnow, none of that is correct. Pollsters say that attendance at religious services has been constant for decades. But during that time response rates in polls have plummeted, robotic push poll calls have proliferated, and sampling has become more difficult. The accuracy of political polling can be known because elections actually happen. But there are no election results to show if the proportion of people who say they pray every day or attend services every week is correct. A large majority of the public doubts that polls can be trusted, and yet night after night on TV, polls experts sum up the nation's habits to an eager audience of millions. Inventing American Religion offers a provocative new argument about the influence of polls in contemporary American society. Wuthnow contends that polls and surveys have shaped-and distorted-how religion is understood and portrayed in the media and also by religious leaders, practitioners, and scholars. He calls for a robust public discussion about American religion that extends well beyond the information provided by polls and surveys, and suggests practical steps to facilitate such a discussion, including changes in how the results of polls and surveys are presented.

A Brilliant Solution

Author : Carol Berkin
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0156028727

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A Brilliant Solution by Carol Berkin Pdf

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.

Inventing Elvis

Author : Mathias Haeussler
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2020-12-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350107670

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Inventing Elvis by Mathias Haeussler Pdf

Elvis Presley stands tall as perhaps the supreme icon of 20th-century U.S. culture. But he was perceived to be deeply un-American in his early years as his controversial adaptation of rhythm and blues music and gyrating on-stage performances sent shockwaves through Eisenhower's conservative America and far beyond. This book explores Elvis Presley's global transformation from a teenage rebel figure into one of the U.S.'s major pop-cultural embodiments from a historical perspective. It shows how Elvis's rise was part of an emerging transnational youth culture whose political impact was heavily conditioned by the Cold War. As well as this, the book analyses Elvis's stint as G.I. soldier in West Germany, where he acted as an informal ambassador for the so-called American way of life and was turned into a deeply patriotic figure almost overnight. Yet, it also suggests that Elvis's increasingly synonymous identity with U.S. culture ultimately proved to be a double-edged sword, as the excesses of his superstardom and personal decline seemingly vindicated long-held stereotypes about the allegedly materialistic nature of U.S. society. Tracing Elvis's story from his unlikely rise in the 1950s right up to his tragic death in August 1977, this book offers a riveting account of changing U.S. identities during the Cold War, shedding fresh light on the powerful role of popular music and consumerism in shaping images of the United States during the cultural struggle between East and West.

Inventing America's Worst Family

Author : Nathaniel Deutsch
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2023-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780520942707

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Inventing America's Worst Family by Nathaniel Deutsch Pdf

This book tells the stranger-than-fiction story of how a poor white family from Indiana was scapegoated into prominence as America's "worst" family by the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century, then "reinvented" in the 1970s as part of a vanguard of social rebellion. In what becomes a profoundly unsettling counter-history of the United States, Nathaniel Deutsch traces how the Ishmaels, whose patriarch fought in the Revolutionary War, were discovered in the slums of Indianapolis in the 1870s and became a symbol for all that was wrong with the urban poor. The Ishmaels, actually white Christians, were later celebrated in the 1970s as the founders of the country's first African American Muslim community. This bizarre and fascinating saga reveals how class, race, religion, and science have shaped the nation's history and myths.

Inventing the American Astronaut

Author : Matthew H. Hersch
Publisher : Springer
Page : 404 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2012-10-08
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781137025296

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Inventing the American Astronaut by Matthew H. Hersch Pdf

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.

Sold American

Author : Charles F. McGovern
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 553 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2009-01-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780807876640

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Sold American by Charles F. McGovern Pdf

At the turn of the twentieth century, an emerging consumer culture in the United States promoted constant spending to meet material needs and develop social identity and self-cultivation. In Sold American, Charles F. McGovern examines the key players active in shaping this cultural evolution: advertisers and consumer advocates. McGovern argues that even though these two professional groups invented radically different models for proper spending, both groups propagated mass consumption as a specifically American social practice and an important element of nationality and citizenship. Advertisers, McGovern shows, used nationalist ideals, icons, and political language to define consumption as the foundation of the pursuit of happiness. Consumer advocates, on the other hand, viewed the market with a republican-inspired skepticism and fought commercial incursions on consumer independence. The result, says McGovern, was a redefinition of the citizen as consumer. The articulation of an "American Way of Life" in the Depression and World War II ratified consumer abundance as the basis of a distinct American culture and history.

Why America Has Stopped Inventing

Author : Darin Gibby
Publisher : Morgan James Publishing
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 52,5 Mb
Release : 2011-08-01
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9781614480488

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Why America Has Stopped Inventing by Darin Gibby Pdf

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.

Inventing American Exceptionalism

Author : Amalia D. Kessler
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 462 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2017-01-01
Category : Adversary system
ISBN : 9780300198072

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Inventing American Exceptionalism by Amalia D. Kessler Pdf

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The "Natural Elevation" of Equity: Quasi-Inquisitorial Procedure and the Early Nineteenth-Century Resurgence of Equity -- Chapter 2. A Troubled Inheritance: The English Procedural Tradition and Its Lawyer- Driven Reconfiguration in Early Nineteenth-Century New York -- Chapter 3. The Non-Revolutionary Field Code: Democratization, Docket Pressures, and Codification -- Chapter 4. Cultural Foundations of American Adversarialism: Civic Republicanism and the Decline of Equity's Quasi-Inquisitorial Tradition -- Chapter 5. Market Freedom and Adversarial Adjudication: The Nineteenth-Century American Debates over (European) Conciliation Courts and the Problem of Procedural Ordering -- Chapter 6. The Freedmen's Bureau Exception: The Triumph of Due (Adversarial) Process and the Dawn of Jim Crow -- Conclusion. The Question of American Exceptionalism and the Lessons of History -- Appendix. An Overview of the Archives -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z