One Nation, Two Cultures - Hardcover

Himmelfarb, Gertrude

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375404554 ISBN 13: 9780375404559

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 1999

Synopsis

The renowned historian and cultural critic provides an eye-opening study of the dichotomy in American society--one a conservative, Puritan influence and the other based in the counterculture of the 1960s--examining their influence on family, religion, law, values, and political life. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Acclaimed historian Gertrude Himmelfarb builds on a cultural insight made by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations: Every civilised society has a pair of yin and yang-like subcultures, one that values hard work and thrift, and a bohemian foil that treats vice more indulgently. "Much of the social history of modern times can be written in terms of the rise and fall, the permutations and combinations, of these two systems", she writes. The problem, according to One Nation, Two Cultures, is that what used to be called the counterculture, with its full embrace of moral relativism and disdain for religious devotion, now dominates American life. It controls the media and the universities, and has started to reach down into the public at large. The "dissident" minority culture is no longer made up of tuned-out Woodstock radicals, but otherwise ordinary Americans who cling to traditional bourgeois values. What sets One Nation, Two Cultures apart from the increasingly tired "culture wars" debate is the historical backdrop it provides. Himmelfarb draws on her immense knowledge of Victorian England and her deep reading of old sources to make her case. With both concision and precision, Himmelfarb explains the problem, gives it vital context, and outlines a few reasons for optimism. Social conservatives who enjoyed Slouching Toward Gomorrah, Robert Bork's best-seller, will definitely want to read One Nation, Two Cultures.

About the Author:

Gertrude Himmelfarb taught for twenty-three years at Brooklyn College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York, where she was named Distinguished Professor of History in 1978. Now Professor Emeritus, she lives with her husband, Irving Kristol, in Washington, D.C. Her previous books include The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values; On Looking into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society; Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians; The New History and the Old; Marriage and Morals Among the Victorians; The Idea of Poverty: England in
the Early Industrial Age; On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill; Victorian Minds (nominated for a National Book Award); Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution; and Lord Acton

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0375404554
• ISBN 13: 9780375404559
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 179