American Cultural History, Eric Avila
American Cultural History, Eric Avila
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American Cultural History
A Very Short Introduction

Author: Eric Avila

Narrator: Tanya Eby

Unabridged: 4 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/14/2018


Synopsis

The iconic images of Uncle Sam and Marilyn Monroe, or the "fireside chats" of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the oratory of Martin Luther King, Jr.: these are the words, images, and sounds that populate American cultural history. From the Boston Tea Party to the Dodgers, from the Blues to Andy Warhol, dime novels to Disneyland, the history of American culture tells us how previous generations of Americans have imagined themselves, their nation, and their relationship to the world and its peoples.

This Very Short Introduction recounts the history of American culture and its creation by diverse social and ethnic groups. In doing so, it emphasizes the historic role of culture in relation to broader social, political, and economic developments. Across the lines of race, class, gender, and sexuality, as well as language, region, and religion, diverse Americans have forged a national culture with a global reach, inventing stories that have shaped a national identity and an American way of life.

About Eric Avila

Eric Avila is professor of History, Chicano Studies, and Urban Planning at UCLA. An urban cultural historian, he is the author of Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles and The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bryan on May 12, 2023

A rudimentary overview of a lot of disparate subjects. It didn't really teach me anything new, but it might be a good quick read for someone looking to find an era of American cultural history that strikes their fancy.......more

Goodreads review by Esmé on March 30, 2024

This was such a brilliant whistle-stop tour of American culture from pre-1800 to 1990s, subjects that I quickly realised I knew surprisingly little about. I loved how fluently and deftly written it was - Avila always emphasises the links between different political/social/historical moments which ma......more

Goodreads review by Jay on October 01, 2019

This one didn’t catch my imagination as much as I hoped. Have you ever read a serious conspiracy theory book? In those that I’ve read, the narrative tends to bounce all over the place, tying people, events, history together showing connections, often fantastical. I think of the movie “A Brilliant Mi......more

Goodreads review by Hank on September 10, 2019

A good survey of American cultural history, Avila's account minimizes the advancement of a politically-correct outlook that plagues several of the Very Short Introductions I've read so far. But in this case, the inclusion of the advancement of feminist, racial, queer, and other identity politics iss......more

Goodreads review by Sal on February 21, 2019

I liked the early chapters, from the colonial period to the end of the 19th century. 20th century stuff was less interesting, and I think, less on target. As a UCLA professor, he has a lot of stuff in here about the movie industry, which is fine, but it seems to me that he overestimated the importan......more