Download or read book Americanism written by Michael Kazin and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Americanism? The contributors to this volume recognize Americanism in all its complexity--as an ideology, an articulation of the nation's rightful place in the world, a set of traditions, a political language, and a cultural style imbued with political meaning. In response to the pervasive vision of Americanism as a battle cry or a smug assumption, this collection of essays stirs up new questions and debates that challenge us to rethink the model currently being exported, too often by force, to the rest of the world. Crafted by a cast of both rising and renowned intellectuals from three continents, the twelve essays in this volume are divided into two sections. The first group of essays addresses the understanding of Americanism within the United States over the past two centuries, from the early republic to the war in Iraq. The second section provides perspectives from around the world in an effort to make sense of how the national creed and its critics have shaped diplomacy, war, and global culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Approaching a controversial ideology as both scholars and citizens, many of the essayists call for a revival of the ideals of Americanism in a new progressive politics that can bring together an increasingly polarized and fragmented citizenry. Contributors: Mia Bay, Rutgers University Jun Furuya, Hokkaido University, Japan Gary Gerstle, University of Maryland Jonathan M. Hansen, Harvard University Michael Kazin, Georgetown University Rob Kroes, University of Amsterdam Melani McAlister, The George Washington University Joseph A. McCartin, Georgetown University Alan McPherson, Howard University Louis Menand, Harvard University Mae M. Ngai, University of Chicago Robert Shalhope, University of Oklahoma Stephen J. Whitfield, Brandeis University Alan Wolfe, Boston College

Download or read book Americanism The Fourth Great Western Religion written by David Gelernter and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2007-06-19 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to “believe” in America? Why do we always speak of our country as having a mission or purpose that is higher than other nations? Modern liberals have invested a great deal in the notion that America was founded as a secular state, with religion relegated to the private sphere. David Gelernter argues that America is not secular at all, but a powerful religious idea—indeed, a religion in its own right. Gelernter argues that what we have come to call “Americanism” is in fact a secular version of Zionism. Not the Zionism of the ancient Hebrews, but that of the Puritan founders who saw themselves as the new children of Israel, creating a new Jerusalem in a new world. Their faith-based ideals of liberty, equality, and democratic governance had a greater influence on the nation’s founders than the Enlightenment. Gelernter traces the development of the American religion from its roots in the Puritan Zionism of seventeenth-century New England to the idealistic fighting faith it has become, a militant creed dedicated to spreading freedom around the world. The central figures in this process were Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the secularization of the American Zionist idea into the form we now know as Americanism. If America is a religion, it is a religion without a god, and it is a global religion. People who believe in America live all over the world. Its adherents have included oppressed and freedom-loving peoples everywhere—from the patriots of the Greek and Hungarian revolutions to the martyred Chinese dissidents of Tiananmen Square. Gelernter also shows that anti-Americanism, particularly the virulent kind that is found today in Europe, is a reaction against this religious conception of America on the part of those who adhere to a rival religion of pacifism and appeasement. A startlingly original argument about the religious meaning of America and why it is loved—and hated—with so much passion at home and abroad.

Download or read book Modern Americanism written by John William Gibson and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reconstructing America written by James W. Ceaser and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many, America has become the primary symbol of all that is grotesque, deadening and oppressive. It is time, this text argues, to reaffirm confidence in American principles and remember that the US forged a system of liberal democratic government that has shaped the destiny of the modern world.

Download or read book The Uses of Variety written by Carrie Tirado BRAMEN and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The turn of the last century, amid the excesses of the Gilded Age, variety became a key notion for Americans'a sign of national progress and development, reassurance that the modern nation would not fall into monotonous dullness or disorderly chaos. Carrie Tirado Bramen pursues this idea through the works of a wide range of regional and cosmopolitan writers, journalists, theologians, and politicians who rewrote the narrative of American exceptionalism through a celebration of variety. Exploring cultural and institutional spheres ranging from intra-urban walking tours in popular magazines to the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, she shows how the rhetoric of variety became naturalized and nationalized as quintessentially American and inherently democratic. By focusing on the uses of the term in the work of William James, Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Du Bois, Hamlin Garland, and Wong Chin Foo, among many others, Bramen reveals how the perceived innocence and goodness of variety were used to construct contradictory and mutually exclusive visions of modern Americanism. Bramen's innovation is to look at the debates of a century ago that established diversity as the distinctive feature of U.S. culture. In the late-nineteenth-century conception, which emphasized the openness of variety while at the same time acknowledging its limits, she finds a useful corrective to the contemporary tendency to celebrate the United States as a postmodern melange or a carnivalesque utopia of hybridity and difference. Table of Contents: Introduction: Americanizing Variety I. The Ideological Formation of Pluralism 1. William James and the Modern Federal Republic 2. Identity Culture and Cosmopolitanism II. The Aesthetics of Diversity 3. The Uneven Development of American Regionalism 4. The Urban Picturesque and Americanization III. Heterogeneous Unions 5. Biracial Fictions and the Mendelist Allegory 6. East Meets West at the World's Parliament of Religions Afterword: In Defense of Partiality Notes Works Cited Acknowledgments Index Reviews of this book: [Bramen] brings dogged research and steady focus to [a] central ambiguity in the American ethos...Her study delivers several powerful messages even plain-talking people can understand. For one, Bramen shows that issues of ethnic diversity and variety, far from being epiphenomena of the last few decades, course through our history and spotlight the ambiguities in what it means to be an American...The Uses of Variety boasts gems...of past cultural history that remind us these are perennial issues...[Bramen's] penetrating expedition through the nuances of America's breast-beating about 'diversity within unity' concentrates the mind. Out of many examples comes an important book: a flinty challenge to intellectual complacency about ourselves. --Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer The Uses of Variety is a significant addition to and revision of a century of American pragmatist thinking about difference. Bramen brings new conceptual tools to bear on the history of multicultural thought and literature and thereby avoids the common pitfalls to produce an important survey and synthesis. --Tom Lutz, author of American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History and editor of These 'Colored' United States: African American Essays from the 1920s Carrie Bramen offers a compelling, intellectually rigorous history of the protean idea of pluralism, a concept that has been embraced heartily by both liberals and conservatives as essential in defining American identity. Situating pluralism in philosophical, psychological, aesthetic, and political contexts, Bramen brings a fresh perspective to illuminating the meaning of the term for late Victorian America and, significantly, its legacy for us today. --Linda Simon, author of Genuine Reality: A Life of William James Taking William James's 'pluralistic universe' as a starting point, The Uses of Variety takes us through regions, ghettos, religious congresses, and a range of theoretical, philosophical, and literary works to explore the multiple and often conflicting constructions of 'variety' in the context of turn-of-the-century U.S. nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Carrie Tirado Bramen brings together a broad spectrum of historical events and cultural theories in which variety variously expressed, contained, and shaped an increasing diversity that was perceived as threatening national coherence. This insightful, thoroughly researched, and timely work will be indispensable for scholars interested in U.S. nationalism, modernism, cosmopolitanism, and multiculturalism. --Priscilla Wald, author of Constituting Americans: Cultural Anxiety and Narrative Form

Download or read book The Birth of Modern America 1914 1945 written by John McClymer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-04-26 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a look at the origins of the culture wars of modern America and the political and economic transformation of the U.S. republic This book tells, in clear and lively prose, how Americans struggled with modernity in both its cultural and economic forms between the start of World War I and the end of World War II, focusing on the 1920s through 1930s. This edition includes revisions that expand the scope and features increased coverage of topics that will be of great interest to new readers as well as those familiar with the subject. The Birth of Modern America, 1914-1945, Second Edition begins with a discussion of the promises and perils of the progressive era. The book goes on to look at the Great War and life on the home front and explores many paradoxes that marked the birth of Modern America. Topics covered include: the pervasive racism and nativism during and after WWI; the disillusionment with Woodrow Wilson's rhetorical idealism; the emergence of national media; the Great Depression; FDR and the New Deal; the attack on Pearl Harbor; Hollywood’s part during World War II; the United States' decision to drop "the bomb" on Japan; and more. Makes a strong contribution to understanding American society in the interwar years (1920s and 1930s) Disputes that American entry into WWII brought the New Deal to an end and argues that wartime measures foreshadowed postwar American practice Features more coverage of politics in the 1920s and 1930s Includes an Afterword covering the G.I. bill, postwar prosperity, Americans' move to the suburbs, the challenges to peace in Europe and Asia, and the Cold War The Birth of Modern America, 1914-1945 is an excellent book for undergraduate courses on the 20th Century and advanced placement courses. It will benefit all students and scholars of the Progressive Era, the Depression, 1920s and 1930s America, and America between the Wars.

Download or read book Anti Americanism in European Literature written by J. Gulddal and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-12-19 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pursues the hypothesis that fictional literature has been instrumental in the development and dissemination of European anti-Americanism from the early 1800s to today. Focusing on Britain, France and Germany, it offers analyses of a range of canonical literary works in which resentful hostility towards the United States is a predominant feature.

Download or read book The New Pan Americanism and the Structuring of Inter American Relations written by Juan Pablo Scarfi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-16 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Pan-Americanism? People have been struggling with that problem for over a century. Pan-Americanism is (and has been) an amalgam of diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural projects under the umbrella of hemispheric cooperation and housed institutionally in the Pan-American Union, and later the Organization of American States. But what made Pan-Americanism exceptional? The chapters in this volume suggest that Pan-Americanism played a central and lasting role in structuring inter-American relations, because of the ways in which the movement was reinvented over time, and because the actors who shaped it often redefined and redeployed the term. Through the twentieth century, new appropriations of Pan-Americanism structured, restructured, and redefined inter-American relations. Taken together, these chapters underscore two exciting new shifts in how scholars and others have come to understand Pan-Americanism and inter-American relations. First, Pan-Americanism is increasingly understood not simply as a diplomatic, commercial, and economic forum, but a movement that has included cultural exchange. Second, researchers, political leaders, and the media in several countries have traditionally conceived of Pan-Americanism as a mechanism of US expansionism. This volume reimagines Pan-Americanism as a movement built by actors from all corners of the Americas.

Download or read book Contemporary American Fiction in the European Classroom written by Laurence W. Mazzeno and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-04-06 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers insight into the ways students enrolled in European classrooms in higher education come to understand American experience through its literary fiction, which for decades has been a key component of English department offerings and American Studies curricula across the continent and in Great Britain and Ireland. The essays provide an understanding of how post-World War II American writers, some already elevated to ‘canonical status’ and some not, are represented in European university classrooms and why they have been chosen for inclusion in coursework. The book will be of interest to scholars and teachers of American literature and American studies, and to students in American literature and American studies courses.

Download or read book Americanism written by Michael Kazin and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Approaching a controversial ideology as both scholars and citizens, many of the essayists call for a revival of the ideals of Americanism in a new progressive politics that can bring together an increasingly polarized and fragmented citizenry."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book A New Struggle for Independence in Modern Latin America written by Pablo A. Baisotti and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores several notable themes related to foreign affairs in Latin America and the reconfiguration of the power of the different states in the region. It offers insightful historical perspectives for understanding national, regional and global issues from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, from analysis of the traditional "hegemony" of the United States over Latin America through its military, and political influence due to the presence of the European Union, Russia, and China. These views cannot be reduced to a simplistic vision of the dominant and subordinate; rather, they attempt to seek lines of continuity by highlighting traditional interpretations of new scenarios such as regional trading and security blocs. The volume refuses to impose a traditional and uncritical linear historical narrative onto the reader but instead proposes an alternative interpretation of the past and its relation to the present. Finally, the growing importance of international mechanisms in enabling the success of certain Latin American regimes is also highlighted, in particular the influence of regional diffusion through international organizations or other networks.

Download or read book A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latina o Art written by Alejandro Anreus and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In-depth scholarship on the central artists, movements, and themes of Latin American art, from the Mexican revolution to the present A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art consists of over 30 never-before-published essays on the crucial historical and theoretical issues that have framed our understanding of art in Latin America. This book has a uniquely inclusive focus that includes both Spanish-speaking Caribbean and contemporary Latinx art in the United States. Influential critics of the 20th century are also covered, with an emphasis on their effect on the development of artistic movements. By providing in-depth explorations of central artists and issues, alongside cross-references to illustrations in major textbooks, this volume provides an excellent complement to wider surveys of Latin American and Latinx art. Readers will engage with the latest scholarship on each of five distinct historical periods, plus broader theoretical and historical trends that continue to influence how we understand Latinx, Indigenous, and Latin American art today. The book’s areas of focus include: The development of avant-garde art in the urban centers of Latin America from 1910-1945 The rise of abstraction during the Cold War and the internationalization of Latin American art from 1945-1959 The influence of the political upheavals of the 1960s on art and art theory in Latin America The rise of conceptual art as a response to dictatorship and social violence in the 1970s and 1980s The contemporary era of neoliberalism and globalization in Latin American and Latino Art, 1990-2010 With its comprehensive approach and informative structure, A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art is an excellent resource for advanced students in Latin American culture and art. It is also a valuable reference for aspiring scholars in the field.

Download or read book Americanism and Americanization written by Mel van Elteren and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the current state of foreign affairs, the terms "Americanism" and "Americanization" sometimes take on an unexpected--and an unflattering--connotation. Americanism essentially involves values, beliefs, ideals, goods and practices in local settings outside the United States that are in some way related or attributed to American influence. While the validity of this influence may be under scrutiny, it requires a detailed historical--and sometimes cultural--analysis to understand all the dynamics and implications of Americanization. A variety of factors contributes to this influence, including the preoccupation and reception of the relevant culture itself. For instance, many European countries have at times demonstrated a preoccupation with all things American which was not necessarily swayed by any action of America itself. The overall actualization of Americanization, however, encompasses a number of societal dimensions, including power differentials in the exchange processes concerned. Informed by a history of relevant developments since the early nineteenth century, this volume presents an in-depth critical analysis of the Americanization process. Beginning with a survey of early European preoccupations with things American, the book goes on to discuss European concerns regarding American influence after World War II. The work then looks at Americanism and its influence within the United States itself, especially regarding developments during the New Deal and beyond. The primary goal of the analysis is the construction of an interpretative framework, allowing for a more balanced approach to the study of Americanism abroad. Written from a critical, social-emancipatory perspective, the author's approach blends economic, military, social, political, cultural and psychological dimensions as well as an examination of the ways in which these areas interact. Finally, Americanism is examined as part of a U.S.-style corporate globalization at the current juncture. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Download or read book French Anti Americanism 1930 1948 written by Seth D. Armus and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2007-02-09 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: French Anti-Americanism offers a historical exploration of the central role of anti-Americanism in French thought, and the often compromised position of France's intelligentsia during World War II. It was in the years preceding World War II, with its complex fears and uncertainties, that America first took center stage as a target for French anxieties. Dr. Seth D. Armus examines the cultural stability of French anti-Americanism and how it has survived colossal political shifts nearly unchanged. Focusing on the contributions made by inter-war intellectuals, this book demonstrates how some of the most striking elements of contemporary anti-Americanism, including a frequent intersection with anti-Semitism, were fully developed six or seven decades ago. Through a study of characters ranging from Nazi collaborators to Catholic humanists, Dr. Armus provides a sophisticated analysis of French anti-Americanism as a cultural phenomenon-distinct from mere political opposition to American foreign policy. French Anti-Americanism is an engaging read that will appeal to scholars of French and American studies, as well as those interested in international relations.

Download or read book Fractured Modernity written by Thomas Welskopp and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ten essays in this volume deal with the debates and conflicts about modernity in a period of American history when the tensions and strains caused by seemingly unrestrained change and the reactions to it were particularly severe and tangible. Partly concentrating on the margins or dark underworlds of modernity, such as racism and violence, partly focusing on the allegedly unlimited space to negotiate and create social order from scratch, the contributions to this volume show that, and discuss why, modernity was an issue in contemporary United States which seemed to have been even more hotly contested than in Europe at the same time, albeit sometimes in terms of “Americanism” rather than “modernism”. In this book, European scholars of the United States apply variations on the transnational discourse on modernity to unexpected dimensions of U.S. history, making this volume a fascinating example of the present-day enterprise of internationalizing American studies.

Download or read book A Living Past written by John Soluri and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though still a relatively young field, the study of Latin American environmental history is blossoming, as the contributions to this definitive volume demonstrate. Bringing together thirteen leading experts on the region, A Living Past synthesizes a wide range of scholarship to offer new perspectives on environmental change in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean since the nineteenth century. Each chapter provides insightful, up-to-date syntheses of current scholarship on critical countries and ecosystems (including Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, the tropical Andes, and tropical forests) and such cross-cutting themes as agriculture, conservation, mining, ranching, science, and urbanization. Together, these studies provide valuable historical contexts for making sense of contemporary environmental challenges facing the region.

Download or read book Rediscovering Americanism written by Mark R. Levin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From #1 New York Times bestselling author and radio host Mark R. Levin comes a searing plea for a return to America’s most sacred values. In Rediscovering Americanism, Mark R. Levin revisits the founders’ warnings about the perils of overreach by the federal government and concludes that the men who created our country would be outraged and disappointed to see where we've ended up. Levin returns to the impassioned question he's explored in each of his bestselling books: How do we save our exceptional country? Because our values are in such a precarious state, he argues that a restoration to the essential truths on which our country was founded has never been more urgent. Understanding these principles, in Levin’s words, can “serve as the antidote to tyrannical regimes and governments.” Rediscovering Americanism is not an exercise in nostalgia, but an appeal to his fellow citizens to reverse course. This essential book brings Levin’s celebrated, sophisticated analysis to the troubling question of America's future, and reminds us what we must restore for the sake of our children and our children's children.