In the 1940s, American thought experienced a cataclysmic paradigm
shift. Before then, national ideology was shaped by American
exceptionalism and bourgeois nationalism: elites saw themselves as
the children of a homogeneous nation standing outside the history
and culture of the Old World. This view repressed the cultures of
those who did not fit the elite vision: people of color, Catholics,
Jews, and immigrants. David W. Noble, a preeminent figure in
American studies, inherited this ideology. However, like many who
entered the field in the 1940s, he rejected the ideals of his
intellectual predecessors and sought a new, multicultural,
post-national scholarship. Throughout his career, Noble has
examined this rupture in American intellectual life. In Death of a
Nation, he presents the culmination of decades of thought in a
sweeping treatise on the shaping of contemporary American studies
and an eloquent summation of his distinguished career.
Exploring the roots of American exceptionalism, Noble
demonstrates that it was a doomed ideology. Capitalists who
believed in a bounded nationalism also depended on a boundless,
international marketplace. This contradiction was inherently
unstable, and the belief in a unified national landscape exploded
in World War II. The rupture provided an opening for alternative
narratives as class, ethnicity, race, and region were reclaimed as
part of the nation's history. Noble traces the effects of this
shift among scholars and artists, and shows how even today they
struggle to imagine an alternative postnational narrative and seek
the meaning of local and national cultures in an increasingly
transnational world. While Noble illustrates the challenges thatthe
paradigm shift created, he also suggests solutions that will help
scholars avoid romanticized and reductive approaches toward the
study of American culture in the future.
General
Imprint: |
University of Minnesota Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Critical American Studies |
Release date: |
October 2002 |
First published: |
October 2002 |
Authors: |
David W. Noble
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 149 x 23mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
400 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8166-4081-2 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8166-4081-5 |
Barcode: |
9780816640812 |
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