Author : Richard Lyman Bushman
Release : 2011-09-21
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 606/5 ( reviews)
Book Synopsis The Refinement of America by : Richard Lyman Bushman
Download or read book The Refinement of America written by Richard Lyman Bushman. This book was released on 2011-09-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lively and authoritative volume makes clear that the quest for taste and manners in America has been essential to the serious pursuit of a democratic culture. Spanning the material world from mansions and silverware to etiquette books, city planning, and sentimental novels, Richard L. Bushman shows how a set of values originating in aristocratic court culture gradually permeated almost every stratum of American society and served to prevent the hardening of class consciousness. A work of immense and richly nuanced learning, The Refinement of America newly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values.