Mystic Chords of Memory: the Transformation of Tradition in American Culture

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Hardbound. VG/VG clean, tight, and fresh. Red-brown paper on boards with gold lettering and cloth-enforced spine, pictorial DJ, [vii] 868 pp, a number of BW images. From Publishers Weekly: From Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, America's leaders have invoked a mythic past, and one of the merits of Cornell historian Kammen's massive study is to show that appeals to collective memory can be a means either of resisting change or abetting it. With brilliant erudition Kammen (A Machine That Would Go of Itself) clarifies the selective filtering of memory that shaped the traditions and self-images of Yankees, upstart Westerners, Southerners resentful of New Englanders, apologists for Puritan tradition and whites anxious to exclude blacks and Native Americans. He illuminates the clash between modern cosmopolites (e.g., Ezra Pound) and folksy regionalists (Carl Sandburg, Stephen Vincent Benet), then charts the wild trajectory of patriotic sentiment from the Vietnam war to the present. Finally, he looks at the current epidemic of nostalgia, concluding that even as Americans historicize the present, they depoliticize the past as a way to minimize conflict. An important contribution to our understanding of how Americans define themselves and the parameters of freedom. Illustrated. History Book Club selection.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal: Within the last ten years, many American historians have discovered the importance of collective "memory" in shaping their nation. In some respects following the lead of influential historians from other nations, they now try to understand the forces that shaped the ways in which Americans remember and use their past and what significant events altered their consciousness of history. Long before recent scholars began decrying the dominance of obscure monographs and calling for greater convergence of ideas in historical studies, Kammen had demonstrated that synthesis could be accomplished without sacrificing richness of detail and divergent interpretations. Moreover, he showed that historians could communicate with one another and a wider audience at the same time. This book, part of Kammen's multivolume rethinking of American history, presents his view of the growing dependence on and debate over collective memory as a historical force during four periods since 1870. With great skill he distinguishes the ways Americans adapted their views of the past to fit the needs of their present circumstances. He weaves a command of formal cultural history with a thorough understanding of popular culture into an astonishingly wonderful book that enlightens not only the history of the past century and a quarter but also the present.
- Charles K. Piehl, Mankato State Univ., Minn.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.