Prologue GOD NATION SELF Notes Index
Andrew Delbanco is the Mendelson Family Chair of American Studies and Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University.
In a tour de force of thoughtful intellectual and cultural history,
the author reflects broadly on the history of the American dream.
Moving deftly from the Puritans to contemporary America, Delbanco
laments the loss of a common culture in our modern commercialized
New Age. As a ‘meditation on hope’ he follows Emerson, who wrote:
‘let us do what we can to rekindle the smouldering nigh quenched
fire on the altar.’
*Virginia Quarterly Review*
Andrew Delbanco is one of America’s most acute and perceptive
cultural critics… [This is] a beautifully written book.
*New York Times Book Review*
One wishes that Delbanco had had more space to develop the nuances
he plays like a cellist using vibrato… Delbanco, among the most
astute and original scholars of history and literature, wisely and
convincingly develops the point made by Tocqueville: ‘Faith is the
only permanent state of mankind.’ By plumbing the faith of our
fathers and mothers—its wrinkles and rosy cheeks—we can begin to
rededicate ourselves to a new story of transcendence.
*Washington Post*
God, Nation, and Self: through these, writes Delbanco in these
essays (so brief, yet so pertinent), the citizens of the U.S. have
given their lives meaning to ward off melancholy, that ‘logical
belief in a hopeless future.’ Puritan Calvinism seems benign next
to consumerist Calvinism. That’s Calvinism as in Calvin Klein,
where the free individual—the U.S.’s great gift to the world—is
‘marooned in a perpetual present, playing alone with its baubles,’
and the ‘ache for meaning goes unrelieved.’ But Delbanco’s wit is
itself the measure of the land of the free.
*The Guardian*
The ‘fundamental question’ for the American mind, Andrew Delbanco
says in The Real American Dream, ‘has always been how to find
release from this feeling of living without propulsion and without
aim’; what he has written is a short but deeply literate history of
this quest, one by turns witty and affecting.
*Times Literary Supplement*
It must be terribly satisfying to hear Andrew Delbanco speak. The
Real American Dream, a series of lectures he gave at Harvard in
1998, is filled with impressive oratory. He manages sermons and
political speeches with facility, invoking great voices from our
nation’s history to contemplate the present state of the American
Dream. Buttressing these far-reaching speeches with the quieter
arts of poetry and prose, Delbanco builds a broad yet detailed
‘history of hope’ in the United States… Lucid empathy permeates
Delbanco’s chapters, and earns the book’s subtitle, A Meditation on
Hope.
*Boston Book Review*
Self, Delbanco points out, will surely prove an empty,
unsatisfying, and ultimately self-defeating object of worship.
Unless we recover some sense of a common good, he suspects, we may
be headed for moral collapse—or worse yet, the rise of some
nefarious ideology or movement. Delbanco does not believe that the
apocalyptic ‘rough beast’ of despotism is right around the
corner—or inevitable. But he offers his jeremiad as a timely
warning and a reminder of things that matter.
*Christian Science Monitor*
According to Andrew Delbanco, today’s consumerism exists to assuage
our spiritual emptiness… Lurking behind our credit-card debt is the
suspicion that our shopping sprees equate to nothing more than
fidgeting while we wait to die. In [his] conclusion,
Delbanco…[directs] to our attention the elemental human need to
believe in something larger than the insular self, and identifies
the solutions that filled this need in the past. These solutions
are thoughtfully presented as guidance for us now.
*Columbus Dispatch*
A critical premise of this remarkable book about creating hope in
an absurd world is Delbanco’s definition of culture. He refers to
it as a sustaining narrative that provides stories and symbols ‘by
which Americans have tried to save themselves from the melancholy
that threatens all reflective beings.’ With this in mind, he then
identifies and ponders our historical devotion to God, nation and
self, trends that have come into fashion at different times in
American history… The Real American Dream is a concise, provocative
narrative essay.
*Columbus Dispatch*
An acute social critic surveys the soul of a country that believes
first in God, then in nation (exemplified in the secular ambitions
of Lincoln and Whitman), and finally in the narcissistic self,
which has created a ‘post-modern melancholy’ in today’s
culture.
*New York Times Book Review*
A fascinating, eminently accessible series of culture-forming
‘stories’ that focus on the pitched battle between the force of
melancholy and that of hope. In the stories, Delbanco ruminates on
American culture from the Puritans to the present. What binds the
seemingly disparate stories of serious-minded ministers, secular
politicians, and modern materialistic Americans is the struggle to
find meaning in a world that often appears to be entirely random
and spiritually incomplete.
*Philadelphia Inquirer*
We’re in what Andrew Delbanco has identified as the third phase of
the history of hope in America—or, rather, the history of hope’s
disintegration… Americans, Delbanco says, have lost any sense of a
common destiny. We have nothing larger than ourselves to worship…
Unlike William Bennett and his ilk, Delbanco hasn’t written a
prescription for spiritual renewal. He simply charts the path to
our current post-modern holding pattern: waiting for the next big
idea, hoping for the return of hope. He might not have the answer
for us, but his voice provides a quiet comfort in the empty
darkness.
*Willamette Week*
Delbanco’s lecture-based essay is engaging and very timely.
*Booklist*
[Delbanco] insightfully contrasts the sustaining force of hope with
the melancholy that comes with its absence.
*Kirkus Reviews*
This represents as fine a synthesis as can be found on hope and the
longing for something more in the collective American soul.
*Library Journal*
A close and passionate reader of American literature, Delbanco
believes that contemporary American culture has lost its once vital
sense of the transcendent… His profoundly insightful readings of
William Bradford, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln and other American
writers, stretching from early colonial times to the present,
should succeed in prodding readers to think deeply about how the
idea of the nation intersects—or doesn’t—with their deepest desires
and hopes.
*Publishers Weekly*
One wishes that Delbanco had had more space to develop the nuances
he plays like a cellist using vibrato...Delbanco, among the most
astute and original scholars of history and literature, wisely and
convincingly develops the point made by Tocqueville: 'Faith is the
only permanent state of mankind.' By plumbing the faith of our
fathers and mothers--its wrinkles and rosy cheeks--we can begin to
rededicate ourselves to a new story of transcendence. -- Joshua
Wolf Shenk * Washington Post *
Andrew Delbanco is one of America's most acute and perceptive
cultural critics...[This is] a beautifully written book. -- Richard
Rorty * New York Times Book Review *
It must be terribly satisfying to hear Andrew Delbanco speak.
The Real American Dream, a series of lectures he gave at
Harvard in 1998, is filled with impressive oratory. He manages
sermons and political speeches with facility, invoking great voices
from our nation's history to contemplate the present state of the
American Dream. Buttressing these far-reaching speeches with the
quieter arts of poetry and prose, Delbanco builds a broad yet
detailed 'history of hope' in the United States...Lucid empathy
permeates Delbanco's chapters, and earns the book's subtitle, A
Meditation on Hope. -- Doug Elder * Boston Book Review *
The 'fundamental question' for the American mind, Andrew Delbanco
says in The Real American Dream, 'has always been how to
find release from this feeling of living without propulsion and
without aim'; what he has written is a short but deeply literate
history of this quest, one by turns witty and affecting. -- Andrew
Stark * Times Literary Supplement *
A fascinating, eminently accessible series of culture-forming
'stories' that focus on the pitched battle between the force of
melancholy and that of hope. In the stories, Delbanco ruminates on
American culture from the Puritans to the present. What binds the
seemingly disparate stories of serious-minded ministers, secular
politicians, and modern materialistic Americans is the struggle to
find meaning in a world that often appears to be entirely random
and spiritually incomplete. -- Sanford Pinsker * Philadelphia
Inquirer *
Self, Delbanco points out, will surely prove an empty,
unsatisfying, and ultimately self-defeating object of worship.
Unless we recover some sense of a common good, he suspects, we may
be headed for moral collapse--or worse yet, the rise of some
nefarious ideology or movement. Delbanco does not believe that the
apocalyptic 'rough beast' of despotism is right around the
corner--or inevitable. But he offers his jeremiad as a timely
warning and a reminder of things that matter. -- Merle Rubin *
Christian Science Monitor *
A critical premise of this remarkable book about creating hope in
an absurd world is Delbanco's definition of culture. He refers to
it as a sustaining narrative that provides stories and symbols 'by
which Americans have tried to save themselves from the melancholy
that threatens all reflective beings.' With this in mind, he then
identifies and ponders our historical devotion to God, nation and
self, trends that have come into fashion at different times in
American history...The Real American Dream is a concise,
provocative narrative essay. -- Kassle Rose * Columbus Dispatch
*
This represents as fine a synthesis as can be found on hope and the
longing for something more in the collective American soul. --
Sandra Collins * Library Journal *
[Delbanco] insightfully contrasts the sustaining force of hope with
the melancholy that comes with its absence. * Kirkus Reviews *
Delbanco's lecture-based essay is engaging and very timely. -- Ray
Olsen * Booklist *
A close and passionate reader of American literature, Delbanco
believes that contemporary American culture has lost its once vital
sense of the transcendent...His profoundly insightful readings of
William Bradford, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln and other American
writers, stretching from early colonial times to the present,
should succeed in prodding readers to think deeply about how the
idea of the nation intersects--or doesn't--with their deepest
desires and hopes. * Publishers Weekly *
We're in what Andrew Delbanco has identified as the third phase of
the history of hope in America--or, rather, the history of hope's
disintegration...Americans, Delbanco says, have lost any sense of a
common destiny. We have nothing larger than ourselves to
worship...Unlike William Bennett and his ilk, Delbanco hasn't
written a prescription for spiritual renewal. He simply charts the
path to our current post-modern holding pattern: waiting for the
next big idea, hoping for the return of hope. He might not have the
answer for us, but his voice provides a quiet comfort in the empty
darkness. -- Becky Ohlsen * Willamette Week *
According to Andrew Delbanco, today's consumerism exists to assuage
our spiritual emptiness...Lurking behind our credit-card debt is
the suspicion that our shopping sprees equate to nothing more than
fidgeting while we wait to die. In [his] conclusion,
Delbanco...[directs] to our attention the elemental human need to
believe in something larger than the insular self, and identifies
the solutions that filled this need in the past. These solutions
are thoughtfully presented as guidance for us now. -- Kassie Rose *
Columbus Dispatch *
An acute social critic surveys the soul of a country that believes
first in God, then in nation (exemplified in the secular ambitions
of Lincoln and Whitman), and finally in the narcissistic self,
which has created a 'post-modern melancholy' in today's culture. --
Scott Veale * New York Times Book Review *
God, Nation, and Self: through these, writes Delbanco in these
essays (so brief, yet so pertinent), the citizens of the U.S. have
given their lives meaning to ward off melancholy, that 'logical
belief in a hopeless future.' Puritan Calvinism seems benign next
to consumerist Calvinism. That's Calvinism as in Calvin Klein,
where the free individual--the U.S.'s great gift to the world--is
'marooned in a perpetual present, playing alone with its baubles,'
and the 'ache for meaning goes unrelieved.' But Delbanco's wit is
itself the measure of the land of the free. -- Vera Rule * The
Guardian *
In a tour de force of thoughtful intellectual and cultural
history, the author reflects broadly on the history of the American
dream. Moving deftly from the Puritans to contemporary America,
Delbanco laments the loss of a common culture in our modern
commercialized New Age. As a "meditation on hope" he follows
Emerson, who wrote: "let us do what we can to rekindle the
smouldering nigh quenched fire on the altar." * Virginia Quarterly
Review *
Tapping into that unique American angst so perceptively captured by de Tocqueville more than a century ago, Delbanco (humanities, Columbia Univ.) here finds that any history of hope in America "must make room at its center for this dogged companion of hopeÄthe lurking suspicion that all our getting and spending amounts to nothing more than fidgeting while we wait for death." Drawing from U.S. history, he charts this Hegelian swing between optimistic energy and melancholy chaos, characterized most dramatically by the Puritans, Lincoln, Whitman, and Emerson. Yet amidst that melancholy there remains a hope focused on our "unshakeable craving for transcendence." Thus, says Delbanco, to be truly American is to live a life of hope, contributing some transcendent good beyond ourselves; otherwise, we condemn ourselves to a lifetime of despair. For the historically literate, this represents as fine a synthesis as can be found on hope and the longing for something more in the collective American soul. Recommended for public and academic American history and religion collections.ÄSandra Collins, Univ. of Pittsburgh Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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