Remembering America

ISBN: 9780803254336 出版年：2015 页码：209 Samuel, Lawrence R University of Nebraska Press

Remembering America: How We Have Told Our Past Lawrence R. Samuel. University of Nebraska Press, 2015.Lawrence R. Samuel's existing body of work frequently addresses how American values have been represented through American popular media during the twentieth century, including the evolution of the American Dream and the impact of American television advertising on American culture. In Remembering America, Samuel, an independent researcher, once again returns to the presentation of American values but, this time, choses the lens of American history. Samuel provides readers with an engrossing overview of American history as it has evolved as a field during the twentieth century. In particular, he is interested in how American history has been expressed through education and, to a lesser extent, in popular culture. The author contends that history is not a single truth or fixed narrative but is a series of interpretations in constant flux. To that end, an exploration of the cultural historiography of American history reveals that interpretations of American history remained a contested ideological battleground.Indeed, Samuel explains that, throughout the twentieth century, historians, politicians, and popular media argued that a firm understanding of American history was essential for the maintenance of democracy, social stability, and the proper appreciation for American values. Unsurprisingly then, American history remained a contentious site as liberals and conservatives fought over what history was, how it should be written, and how it should be taught. Was history made up of objective truths as argued by liberals, or was a mythologized past more important for inspiring patriotism, as favored by conservatives? As the field increasingly fragmented in the second half of the twentieth century due to the rise of identity politics, history never failed to remain politicized and polarizing, as liberals and conservatives continued to fight for the right to dictate a dominant national narrative.Interested in how American history impacts lived experiences, Samuel provides a juxtaposition between how history is treated in the education system and how history is addressed within popular culture. Samuel finds that, as professionals within the field were squabbling, the American public maintained a problematic relationship with their past. Throughout the twentieth century, American students and adults seemed to suffer from a historical illiteracy. …