American Enlightenments Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason
American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason by Caroline Winterer, published by Yale University Press on August 14, 2018, is a reprint edition comprising 368 pages. This book presents a critical examination of the concept of an American Enlightenment, challenging the traditional narrative that positions the establishment of the United States as a straightforward realization of European intellectual ideals. Winterer, a historian at Stanford, argues that the myth of a singular, patriotic era of enlightenment was constructed during the Cold War, serving as a defense against totalitarianism.
Readers will find a nuanced exploration of the diverse paths toward enlightenment that Americans pursued in the 1700s, influenced by European thought in complex ways. The book delves into the intersections of political, religious, scientific, and artistic developments during the Revolutionary and Colonial periods, revealing how many of the ideas we associate with the American past are modern reinterpretations rather than direct inheritances from the eighteenth century. Through this reassessment, Winterer invites a deeper understanding of the historical context that shaped American identity and thought.
Official synopsis Publisher
A provocative reassessment of the concept of an American golden age of European-born reason and intellectual curiosity in the years following the Revolutionary War
The accepted myth of the “American Enlightenment” suggests that the rejection of monarchy and establishment of a new republic in the United States in the eighteenth century was the realization of utopian philosophies born in the intellectual salons of Europe and radiating outward to the New World. In this revelatory work, Stanford historian Caroline Winterer argues that a national mythology of a unitary, patriotic era of enlightenment in America was created during the Cold War to act as a shield against the threat of totalitarianism, and that Americans followed many paths toward political, religious, scientific, and artistic enlightenment in the 1700s that were influenced by European models in more complex ways than commonly thought. Winterer’s book strips away our modern inventions of the American national past, exploring which of our ideas and ideals are truly rooted in the eighteenth century and which are inventions and mystifications of more recent times.
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