The Refinement of America
, by BUSHMAN, RICHARD LYMANNote: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
- ISBN: 9780679744146 | 0679744142
- Cover: Trade Paper
- Copyright: 8/31/1993
This lively and authoritative volume makes clear that the quest for taste and manners in America has been essential to the serious pursuit of a democratic culture. Spanning the material world from mansions and silverware to etiquette books, city planning, and sentimental novels, Richard L. Bushman shows how a set of values originating in aristocratic court culture gradually permeated almost every stratum of American society and served to prevent the hardening of class consciousness. A work of immense and richly nuanced learning,The Refinement of Americanewly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values.