Harold E. Stearns’ Critique of American Culture in the Book, Civilization in the United States :: American America History

Harold E. Stearns brush up of American Culture in the Book, Civilization in the United StatesHarold E. Stearns and his colleagues desexualize out on a mission to enlighten and inform the American society of the 1920s in their book entitled Civilization in the United States. Thirty-three authors with the aid of an editor, Stearns, instead produced a highly polemic and inadequate account of certain aspects of life in American society. fit in to critic Arthur Schlesinger the writers of Civilization in the United States fell short of their finis of producing a critical depiction of American society and instead wrote supercilious reflections (167). There argon three main(prenominal) themes presented in each show include in Civilization. They are as follows Americans are hypocritical, American acculturation is not Anglo-Saxon nor nationalistic, and finally American social life lacks emotion. Stearns chose his writers very(prenominal) carefully. He wanted each of them to be blunt and straight to the smudge in their essays, especially when writing on these three themes. In his preface, Stearns himself arouses If these main contentions seem severe or pessimistic, the answer must be we do not write to please we strive only to understand and to state as clearly as we can (vii). It is obvious that Harold Stearns wanted to theatrical role his ideas and those of his counterparts in an open, bold fashion and that is why each essay touches on the main themes mentioned above. Critic Arthur Schlesinger, however mentions in his critique of Civilization that if in that respect are any common themes in these essays at all, that they certainly are not the ones Harold Stearns mentions. Rather, Schlesinger hints that the theme is that Americans are cocksure but bewildered children in a world they cannot understand which is new and constantly changing (168). He feels that overall, each author wrote his or her own opinion and didnt follow a common theme in the true sense of the word. It is apparent to me that the critic has a valid point and his opinion coincides with my own opinion. Stearns may cook had a common theme in mind when he organize the writing of Civilization, but it seems as if the authors went a bit off track. close to of the topics discussed in Civilization in the United States were The Intellectual Life, The City, Economic Opinion, History, Business, Engineering, Politics, Journalism, and ism to name a few. As critic Arthur Schlesinger notes in his review of the book, the topics and authors included in this account of