In the 1920s, Americans talked of their times as “modern,” which
is to say, fundamentally different, in pace and texture, from what
went before—a new era. With the end of World War I, an array of
dizzying inventions and trends pushed American society from the
Victorian era into modernity. The New Era provides a history of
American thought and culture in the 1920s through the eyes of American
intellectuals determined to move beyond an older role as gatekeepers
of cultural respectability and become tribunes of openness,
experimentation, and tolerance instead. Recognizing the gap between
themselves and the mainstream public, younger critics alternated
between expressions of disgust at American conformity and optimistic
pronouncements of cultural reconstruction. The book tracks the
emergence of a new generation of intellectuals who made culture the
essential terrain of social and political action and who framed a new
set of arguments and debates—over women’s roles, sex, mass
culture, the national character, ethnic identity, race, democracy,
religion, and values—that would define American public life for
fifty years.
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American Thought and Culture in the 1920s
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781442215405
Publisert
2012
Utgiver
Vendor
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Antall sider
282
Forfatter