Word: boorstin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...students of American History might recall that progressives and conservatives have frequently crossed purposes. Fitzhugh treated slavery as advanced socialism in 1854; Margaret Chase Smith's liberal abstention cleared the way for ABM development in 1969. Daniel Boorstin is no exception. His latest book, ostensibly a critical defense of the established order, provides a radical with material for a scathing indictment of this order. The author makes a value judgment, but, for??nately, he has not allowed his opinions to color the pages of research and insights he has compiled...
...book is a collection of essays, somewhat repetitions; yet the points Boorstin makes sustain repetition. Each original example, each lively anecdote he presents is a small revelation. His opinion is his right: his material, though, is highly relevant. His conclusion, an appeal for rational compromise, might well make Richard Nixon's heart palpitate gratefully-but his research calls for a radical interpretation...
With consistent insight. Boorstin chronicles the development of the American "standard of living...
Statistical science, advertising, philanthropy, retail department stores, media-these are American "traditions" which have contributed to the growth of what Boorstin calls "Consumption Communities": communities based on the "vague. a?tentuated, temporary" ties of shared brand names and shared possessions. To the mu???al self-interest of all involved, the standard of living has become the most ambiguotis, most attenuated, yet most basic social...
...revisionists have a particular quarrel with the dominant scholarly voice of the recent past: what they call "consensus history," as exemplified by such diverse writers as Richard Hofstadter of Columbia, Daniel Boorstin of the Smithsonian Institution, Henry Nash Smith of the University of California at Berkeley, and George Kennan of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. The consensus historians, who came to maturity during World War II and the early years of the cold war, exhibit an understandable hostility to totalitarianism in their writings. By contrast, they emphasize the spirit of compromise and accommodation in American history. Compared with...