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Mystic Chords of Memory

The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture

Author Michael Kammen
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Paperback
$25.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Feb 02, 1993 | 880 Pages | 9780679741770
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In this authoritative study Kammen examines the role of tradition, collective memory, and patriotism in American national culture and the transformations they have undergone.  He compares and contrasts America's memory of its past with that of other nations, and looks at how the past has been used: both to resist and to promote change; to define regional, social-class, and ethnic identity; in advertising, tourist sites and other commercializations; for commemorative monuments, holidays, and organizations; and for partisan purposes. Ranging from John Adams to Ronald Reagan, from the origins of Independence Day celebrations to the controversies surrounding the Vietnam War Memorial, from the Daughters of the American Revolution to immigrant associations, and filled with incisive analyses of such phenomena as Americana and its collectors, Mystic Chords of Memory is a brilliant, immensely readable, and enormously important book.

"Illustrated with hundreds of well-chosen anecdotes and minute observations...Kammen is a demon researcher who seems to have mined his nuggets from the entire corpus of American cultural history...insightful and sardonic."--The Washington Post Book World
MICHAEL KAMMEN, the Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture at Cornell University, was a president of the Organization of American Historians. He was the author or editor of numerous works, including People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History, and A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture, awarded the Francis Parkman Prize and the Henry Adams Prize. Kammen lectured throughout the world. He died in 2013. View titles by Michael Kammen

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In this authoritative study Kammen examines the role of tradition, collective memory, and patriotism in American national culture and the transformations they have undergone.  He compares and contrasts America's memory of its past with that of other nations, and looks at how the past has been used: both to resist and to promote change; to define regional, social-class, and ethnic identity; in advertising, tourist sites and other commercializations; for commemorative monuments, holidays, and organizations; and for partisan purposes. Ranging from John Adams to Ronald Reagan, from the origins of Independence Day celebrations to the controversies surrounding the Vietnam War Memorial, from the Daughters of the American Revolution to immigrant associations, and filled with incisive analyses of such phenomena as Americana and its collectors, Mystic Chords of Memory is a brilliant, immensely readable, and enormously important book.

"Illustrated with hundreds of well-chosen anecdotes and minute observations...Kammen is a demon researcher who seems to have mined his nuggets from the entire corpus of American cultural history...insightful and sardonic."--The Washington Post Book World

Author

MICHAEL KAMMEN, the Newton C. Farr Professor of American History and Culture at Cornell University, was a president of the Organization of American Historians. He was the author or editor of numerous works, including People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History, and A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture, awarded the Francis Parkman Prize and the Henry Adams Prize. Kammen lectured throughout the world. He died in 2013. View titles by Michael Kammen

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