Andrew Hartman is professor of history at Illinois State University and the author of Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School.
"Andrew Hartman has worked with a deft hand and a keen mind to give
us an absorbing account of the last half-century of culture wars in
the United States. By digging far beneath the cross-fire style of
political rhetoric that bombards us today, Hartman shows how the
seismic changes in American society, most notably in the struggle
to create a more equal and inclusive democracy, unleashed a fierce
conservative attempt to hold on to a world that was escaping their
grip."--Gary Nash, author of History on Trial "An unparalleled
guide . . . making sense of the polarized politics that have
plagued the USA for the past four decades. . . . Hartman's central
point is that the debates were deadly serious, asking fundamental
questions abotu who we are as a nation, and about who we want to
be. . . . In his efforts to provide an overview and explanation of
the culture wars, Hartman is to date without peer."--Kevin M.
Schultz "The Sixties " "Hartman's text is nothing less than
required reading on the culture wars, their history, and their
impact on American public life."--L. Benjamin Rolsky "H-Net Reviews
" "Whatever happened to the culture wars? Americans don't argue the
way they used to, at least not over hot-button cultural issues like
same-sex marriage and abortion. Andrew Hartman has produced both a
history and a eulogy, providing a new and compelling explanation
for the rise and fall of the culture wars. But don't celebrate too
soon. On the ashes of the culture wars, we've built a bleak and
acquisitive country dedicated to individual freedom over social
democracy. Anyone who wants to take account of the culture wars--or
to wrestle with their complicated legacy--will also have to grapple
with this important book."--Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Whose
America? "As a guide to the late twentieth-century culture wars,
Hartman is unrivalled. . . . Incisive portraits of individual
players in the culture wars dramas. . . . Reading Hartman sometimes
feels like debriefing with friends after a raucous night out, an
experience punctuated by laughter, head-scratching, and moments of
regret for the excesses involved."--New Republic "The frist book to
tell the story of this war in all its diversity. . . . Hartman, to
his credit, insists that the issues at stake in cultural politics
are 'real and compelling.' . . . His affections clearly rest with
the liberals, but he is generally nonpoloemical in his accounts of
the two sides."--Christian Century "A lively chronicle. . . . Mr.
Hartman's book makes two major contributions. The first is his
framing of the 'culture wars' debate from its earliest days. . . .
His second major contribution is his conclusion that the culture
wars are over."--Wall Street Journal "A provocative review of a
formative epoch."--Booklist "A valuable addition to the growing
body of literature historicizing the post-Sixties era. . . .
Classic intellectual history. . . . Thoughtful and
thought-provoking."--Library Journal "There is no shortage of great
books about post-1960s American political culture. Andrew Hartman's
history of the culture wars ranks among the best. Hartman manages
to transcend the worldviews of
his subjects, other than to confirm the existence of the culture
wars as a distinct moment in American history. His is not the final
word on that moment. It is, however, among the most reliable
accounts thus far."--American Historical Review "The culture wars
were about more than porn, rap lyrics, and Piss Christ, Andrew
Hartman shows in A War for the Soul of America. They were
fundamentally about divergent visions of national life. This is a
lucid and powerful book that explains much about our own
time."--David Sehat, author of The Jefferson Rule "Hartman's richly
researched intellectual history makes a major contribution by
taking late twentieth century conservative political culture
seriously. A War for the Soul of America is a must read for anyone
who wants to understand the fierceness with which so many Americans
continue to defend themselves against feminism, immigration, gay
rights and racial equality in the twenty-first century as
well."--Claire Bond Potter, The New School "A War for the Soul of
America illuminates the most contentious issues of the last half of
the twentieth century. In lively, elegant prose, Andrew Hartman
explains how and why the consensus that appeared to permeate the
nation following World War II frayed and fractured so dramatically
in the 1960s. With keen insight and analysis, he shows that the
Culture Wars were not marginal distractions from the main issues of
the day. Rather, they were profound struggles over the very
foundation of what it meant to be an American. In tracing the
history of those conflicts over the last half of the twentieth
century, Hartman provides a new understanding of the tensions and
processes that transformed the nation."--Elaine Tyler May, author
of America and the Pill
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