Author:
Boorstin, Daniel J. (Daniel Joseph), 1914-2004.
Edition Statement:Modern Library ed.
Imprint:New York : Modern Library, 1995.
Descriptionxvi, 908, [5] p. ; 21 cm.
Note:From THE AMERICANS: THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE: -- Wanted: a philosophy of the unexpected -- How orthodoxy made the Puritans practical -- How Puritans resisted the temptations of utopia -- The quest for martyrdom -- How Quakers misjudged the Indians -- From country squire to planter capitalist -- "Practical godliness": toleration without a theory -- The fluidity of professions -- Culture by the book: the spelling fetish -- The rise of the newspaper -- Why colonial printed matter was conservative -- Defensive warfare and naïve diplomacy -- From THE AMERICANS: THE NATIONAL EXPERIENCE: Inventing resources: ice for the Indies -- Inventing resources: granite for a new stone age -- The businessman as an American institution -- "Palaces of the public" -- The balloon-frame house -- A half-known country: settlement before discovery -- Government as a service institution -- The mythologizing of George Washington -- From THE AMERICANS: THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE: Lawless sheriffs and honest desperadoes -- Exploiting the federal commodity: divorce and gambling -- A democracy of clothing -- Consumers' palaces -- Christmas and other festivals of consumption -- Condense! making food portable through time -- Walls become windows -- Making experience repeatable -- Extending experience: the new segregation -- From packing to packaging: the new strategy of desire -- From THE DISCOVERERS: The temptations of the moon -- The week: gateway to science -- The rise of the equal hour -- Why it happened in the West -- The awe of mountains -- The discovery of Asia -- Beyond the threatening cape -- "The enterprise of the Indies" -- Fair winds, soft words, and luck -- Into "the mists of paradox" -- New worlds within -- Unseen currents within -- Priority becomes the prize -- Paths to evolution -- The lost arts of memory -- "To wake the dead" -- The discovery of prehistory -- The infinite and the infinitesimal -- From THE CREATORS: -- The silence of the Buddha -- The innovative god of Saint Augusting -- Castles of eternity -- A road not taken: the Japanese triumph of wood -- The spectator reborn -- The music of instruments: from court to concert -- The painted moment -- The rise of the skyscraper -- Inventing the essay -- "I too am here" -- Mysteries of a public art -- ESSAYS: I. SEARCH FOR COMMUNITY: -- "A wrestler with the angel" -- The Jeffersonian circle -- Self-liquidating ideals -- How belief in the existence of an American theory has made a theory superfluous -- Our conscience-wracked nation -- II. MODERN TIMES AND PSEUDO-EVENTS: -- Extravagant expectations -- A flood of pseudo-events -- The direct democracy of public relations: selling the president to the people -- Grsham's law: knowledge or information? -- The rhetoric of democracy -- III. PREPARING FOR THE UNEXPECTED: -- The fertile verge -- Two kinds of revolutions -- The age of negative discovery -- Land of the unexpected -- My father, Lawyer Sam Boorstin -- The amateur spirit.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (p. [907]-[908]).
