Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Identity and the Failure of America: From Thomas Jefferson to the War on Terror

0/5 ( ratings)

From Thomas Jefferson to John Rawls, justice has been at the center of America’s self-image and national creed. At the same time, for many of its peoples-from African slaves and European immigrants to women and the poor-the American experience has been defined by injustice: oppression, disenfranchisement, violence, and prejudice.

In Identity and the Failure of America, John Michael explores the contradictions between a mythic national identity promising justice to all and the realities of a divided, hierarchical, and frequently iniquitous history and social order. Through a series of insightful readings, Michael analyzes such cultural moments as the epic dramatization of the tension between individual ambition and communal complicity in Moby-Dick, attempts to effect social change through sympathy in the novels of Lydia Marie Child and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s antislavery activism and Frederick Douglass’s long fight for racial equity, and the divisive figures of John Brown and Nat Turner in American letters and memory.

Focusing on exemplary instances when the nature of the United States as an essentially conflicted nation turned to force, Michael ultimately posits the development of a more cosmopolitan American identity, one that is more fully and justly imagined in response to the nation’s ethical failings at home and abroad.

John Michael is professor of English and of visual and cultural studies at the University of Rochester. He is the author of Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values and Emerson and Skepticism: The Cipher of the World.

Language: English

Pages: 320

Format: Paperback

Release: January 01, 2008

ISBN 13: 9780816651443

Identity and the Failure of America: From Thomas Jefferson to the War on Terror

0/5 ( ratings)

From Thomas Jefferson to John Rawls, justice has been at the center of America’s self-image and national creed. At the same time, for many of its peoples-from African slaves and European immigrants to women and the poor-the American experience has been defined by injustice: oppression, disenfranchisement, violence, and prejudice.

In Identity and the Failure of America, John Michael explores the contradictions between a mythic national identity promising justice to all and the realities of a divided, hierarchical, and frequently iniquitous history and social order. Through a series of insightful readings, Michael analyzes such cultural moments as the epic dramatization of the tension between individual ambition and communal complicity in Moby-Dick, attempts to effect social change through sympathy in the novels of Lydia Marie Child and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s antislavery activism and Frederick Douglass’s long fight for racial equity, and the divisive figures of John Brown and Nat Turner in American letters and memory.

Focusing on exemplary instances when the nature of the United States as an essentially conflicted nation turned to force, Michael ultimately posits the development of a more cosmopolitan American identity, one that is more fully and justly imagined in response to the nation’s ethical failings at home and abroad.

John Michael is professor of English and of visual and cultural studies at the University of Rochester. He is the author of Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values and Emerson and Skepticism: The Cipher of the World.

Language: English

Pages: 320

Format: Paperback

Release: January 01, 2008

ISBN 13: 9780816651443

More books from John Michael

The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

3.3/5 ( ratings)

AAOS Atlas of Orthoses and Assistive Devices

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Top Country Hits of 1995 - 1996 : And Still; The Beaches of Cheyenne; Cheek yes or No; If You Loved Me; No News; Pickup Man; Rebecca Lynn; Tall, Tall Trees; Texas Tornado; Wild Angels; When You Say Nothing At All; She's Every Woman; It Matters to Me

Palestine America

Marvel memes: Marvel memes fully enjoy never seen &#x1f602;

Social Media Marketing 2021: Social Media Marketing Strategies That Would Work In 2021

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery/The Spy Who Shagged Me/Goldmember [DVD]

Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition (Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, 4)

The Art of Moderation : An Alternative to Alcoholism

Country Living Gardener August 2000

Werewolf: The Final Yard

Rate this book!

Write a review?