Ranging widely over a span of three hundred and fifty years of
discussion and controversy, Martha Banta's book makes a fundamental
contribution to the continuing debate on the nature of success and
failure in a specifically American context. Her Whitmanesque view of
the debate takes in the work of innumerable writers, particularly
Emerson, Thoreau, Twain, Melville, Henry Adams, William and Henry
James, Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, and Norman Mailer. She draws on the
work of philosophers, psychologists, and historians as well. Rather
than discussing failure and success as merely economic or political
statistics, Professor Banta explores them in terms of attitudes and
concepts. She asks what it feels like for an American to succeed or
fail in a country that is often defined in relation to its own success
or failure as an idea and as an experience. While examining the
thoughts, feelings, and language of Americans caught in the dialectic
between winning and losing, the author reveals the strain Americans
feel in fulfilling the overall scheme of their own lives as well as
the life or destiny of their country. Originally published in 1979.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from
the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These
editions preserve the original texts of these important books while
presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal
of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the
rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by
Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400867165
Publisert
2016
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter