A Companion to American Cultural History
Blackwell Companions to American History
February 2008
476 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBN:
978-0-631-23566-8
John Wiley & Sons
A Companion to American Cultural History offers a
historiographic overview of the scholarship, with special attention
to the major studies and debates that have shaped the field, and an
assessment of where it is currently headed.
* 30 essays explore the history of American culture at all
analytic levels
* Written by scholarly experts well-versed in the questions and
controversies that have activated interest in this burgeoning
field
* Part of the authoritative Blackwell Companions to American
History series
* Provides both a chronological and thematic approach: topics
range from British America in the Eighteenth Century to the modern
day globalization of American Culture; thematic approaches include
gender and sexuality and popular culture
Notes on Contributors viii
Introduction xi
Karen Halttunen
Part I Early America 1
1. Cultural Encounters: Americans and Europeans 3
Peter C. Mancall
2. Cultures of Colonial Settlement 17
Carla Gardina Pestana
3. British America in the Eighteenth Century 32
Karin Wulf
4. The Revolution and the Early Republic 46
Catherine E. Kelly
Part II The Nineteenth Century 63
5. Antebellum Cultural History 65
James W. Cook
6. Religion and Reform 79
Lewis Perry
7. Black Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
95
Demetrius L. Eudell
8. The Civil War in American Culture 110
Alice Fahs
9. The West 125
Ann Fabian
10. The Gilded Age 139
Scott A. Sandage
11. Immigration and Ethnic Culture 154
Hasia R. Diner
12. Cultural Watersheds in Fin de Siècle America 166
Janet M. Davis
Part III The Twentieth Century 181
13. Consumer Culture and Mass Culture 183
Charles F. McGovern
14. Modernism 198
Joel Dinerstein
15. Politics and Culture in the 1930s and 1940s 214
Julia L. Foulkes
16. The 1950s and 1960s 230
Daniel Belgrad
17. The Globalization of American Culture 246
Petra Goedde
Part IV Thematic and Methodological Approaches 263
18. Cultural Theory, Dialogue, and American Cultural History
265
George Lipsitz
19. Situating Visual Culture 279
Sally M. Promey
20. Material Cultures 295
J. Ritchie Garrison
21. Performance and Display 311
M. Alison Kibler
22. Gender and Sexuality 327
Jane H. Hunter
23. Race and Ethnicity 341
Eric Avila
24. Popular Culture 356
Nan Enstad
25. History and Memory 371
David Glassberg
Part V The Cultural Turn in Other Fields 381
26. Culturalist Approaches to Intellectual History 383
Casey Nelson Blake
27. The Impact of the Culture Concept on Social History
396
Lawrence B. Glickman
28. Religious History and the Cultural Turn 406
Leigh E. Schmidt
29. Political History and the Tool of Culture 416
Joanne B. Freeman
30. The Cultural History of Foreign Relations 425
Andrew J. Rotter
Index 437
Introduction xi
Karen Halttunen
Part I Early America 1
1. Cultural Encounters: Americans and Europeans 3
Peter C. Mancall
2. Cultures of Colonial Settlement 17
Carla Gardina Pestana
3. British America in the Eighteenth Century 32
Karin Wulf
4. The Revolution and the Early Republic 46
Catherine E. Kelly
Part II The Nineteenth Century 63
5. Antebellum Cultural History 65
James W. Cook
6. Religion and Reform 79
Lewis Perry
7. Black Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
95
Demetrius L. Eudell
8. The Civil War in American Culture 110
Alice Fahs
9. The West 125
Ann Fabian
10. The Gilded Age 139
Scott A. Sandage
11. Immigration and Ethnic Culture 154
Hasia R. Diner
12. Cultural Watersheds in Fin de Siècle America 166
Janet M. Davis
Part III The Twentieth Century 181
13. Consumer Culture and Mass Culture 183
Charles F. McGovern
14. Modernism 198
Joel Dinerstein
15. Politics and Culture in the 1930s and 1940s 214
Julia L. Foulkes
16. The 1950s and 1960s 230
Daniel Belgrad
17. The Globalization of American Culture 246
Petra Goedde
Part IV Thematic and Methodological Approaches 263
18. Cultural Theory, Dialogue, and American Cultural History
265
George Lipsitz
19. Situating Visual Culture 279
Sally M. Promey
20. Material Cultures 295
J. Ritchie Garrison
21. Performance and Display 311
M. Alison Kibler
22. Gender and Sexuality 327
Jane H. Hunter
23. Race and Ethnicity 341
Eric Avila
24. Popular Culture 356
Nan Enstad
25. History and Memory 371
David Glassberg
Part V The Cultural Turn in Other Fields 381
26. Culturalist Approaches to Intellectual History 383
Casey Nelson Blake
27. The Impact of the Culture Concept on Social History
396
Lawrence B. Glickman
28. Religious History and the Cultural Turn 406
Leigh E. Schmidt
29. Political History and the Tool of Culture 416
Joanne B. Freeman
30. The Cultural History of Foreign Relations 425
Andrew J. Rotter
Index 437
"The thirty bibliographies of the most influential work in American
cultural history would by themselves make the hook very helpful to
a wide audience. But the essays' historiographical and thematic
overviews provide the most valuable contribution, for each essay is
aimed squarely at the ways that the best works in the field have
been in conversation with each other." (A Journal of Southern
History, February 2010)
"A monumental achievement. The breadth of coverage is staggering,
and the depth of insight a credit to its multifarious authors.
Rarely can one book offer so much." (Reviews in History,
April 2009)
"This excellent reader in US cultural history for
undergraduates may also be useful to specialists as a general
overview of the field as it has evolved, especially over the past
four decades. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All
levels/libraries." (CHOICE, March 2009)
"A guide for scholars and students who are interested in
developments over the past quarter-century ... .No reader
should come away from it without a good springboard to further
study. It is an apitite-whetter, a conspectus and a guide."
(Reference Reviews, January 2009)
"The contributors to this indispensable volume have applied to
scholarship in American cultural history the same keen imagination
and appreciation for complexity that has made the field so exciting
in recent years."
-Joan Shelley Rubin, University of Rochester
"This important collection of original essays provides a most
useful and accessible survey of a new approach to United States
history. It is not just a companion but a text in its own right, a
new survey of the American past from many cultural
perspectives."
-Alan Trachtenberg, Yale University
"This volume marks a major contribution to the field of American
cultural history. Illuminating, accessible, and authoritative, it
will indeed prove a trusty companion for students and
scholars alike."
-John Kasson, The University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
"This well wrought collection is a must-read. Its essays do more
than any other book to clarify the multiple meanings of cultural
history and to document the thorough penetration of cultural
approaches to all the sub-fields of American historical
scholarship."
-Richard W. Fox, University of Southern California
"A comprehensive and timely overview of American cultural
history, from its first pioneering examples to its most recent
linguistic, visual, transnational, and performative turns. Students
looking for a lucid and lively introduction to the themes, methods,
and impact of the culturalist perspective on US history will find
this volume indispensable."
-Jean-Christophe Agnew, Yale University
"This collection is a marvel of intelligent synthesis and
concise interpretation. Karen Halttunen has assembled some of the
best cultural historians in the United States and they have cast
unprecedented light on their contentious field from a rich variety
of chronological and conceptual perspectives. The result is an
indispensable scholarly resource."
-Jackson Lears, Rutgers University
cultural history would by themselves make the hook very helpful to
a wide audience. But the essays' historiographical and thematic
overviews provide the most valuable contribution, for each essay is
aimed squarely at the ways that the best works in the field have
been in conversation with each other." (A Journal of Southern
History, February 2010)
"A monumental achievement. The breadth of coverage is staggering,
and the depth of insight a credit to its multifarious authors.
Rarely can one book offer so much." (Reviews in History,
April 2009)
"This excellent reader in US cultural history for
undergraduates may also be useful to specialists as a general
overview of the field as it has evolved, especially over the past
four decades. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All
levels/libraries." (CHOICE, March 2009)
"A guide for scholars and students who are interested in
developments over the past quarter-century ... .No reader
should come away from it without a good springboard to further
study. It is an apitite-whetter, a conspectus and a guide."
(Reference Reviews, January 2009)
"The contributors to this indispensable volume have applied to
scholarship in American cultural history the same keen imagination
and appreciation for complexity that has made the field so exciting
in recent years."
-Joan Shelley Rubin, University of Rochester
"This important collection of original essays provides a most
useful and accessible survey of a new approach to United States
history. It is not just a companion but a text in its own right, a
new survey of the American past from many cultural
perspectives."
-Alan Trachtenberg, Yale University
"This volume marks a major contribution to the field of American
cultural history. Illuminating, accessible, and authoritative, it
will indeed prove a trusty companion for students and
scholars alike."
-John Kasson, The University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
"This well wrought collection is a must-read. Its essays do more
than any other book to clarify the multiple meanings of cultural
history and to document the thorough penetration of cultural
approaches to all the sub-fields of American historical
scholarship."
-Richard W. Fox, University of Southern California
"A comprehensive and timely overview of American cultural
history, from its first pioneering examples to its most recent
linguistic, visual, transnational, and performative turns. Students
looking for a lucid and lively introduction to the themes, methods,
and impact of the culturalist perspective on US history will find
this volume indispensable."
-Jean-Christophe Agnew, Yale University
"This collection is a marvel of intelligent synthesis and
concise interpretation. Karen Halttunen has assembled some of the
best cultural historians in the United States and they have cast
unprecedented light on their contentious field from a rich variety
of chronological and conceptual perspectives. The result is an
indispensable scholarly resource."
-Jackson Lears, Rutgers University
Karen Halttunen is Professor of History and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, and former president of the American Studies Association. She is the author of Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870 (1986) and Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination (2000).
