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 America newly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values.

Item Information Item Information

Format: TradePaperback
Author: Bushman, Richard Lyman
ISBN: 9780679744146
Condition: Used
Dimensions: 8.00 x 1.00
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Year: 1993

The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities

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