عنوان

The American dream :

(Number (ISBN

0195158210 (acid-free paper)

(Number (ISBN

9780195158212 (acid-free paper)

Number

dltt

Title Proper

The American dream :

General Material Designation

[Book]

Other Title Information

a short history of an idea that shaped a nation /

First Statement of Responsibility

Jim Cullen.

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

x, 214 pages :

Other Physical Details

illustrations, portraits ;

Dimensions

22 cm

Text of Note

"Printed in the United States of America"--Back of title page.

Text of Note

Published in Oxford England.

Text of Note

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Text of Note

Introduction: A dream country -- Dream of the good life (I) : the Puritan enterprise -- Dream charter : The declaration of independence -- Dream of the good life (II) : upward mobility -- King of America : the dream of equality -- Detached houses : the dream of home ownership -- Dream of the good life (III) : the coast -- Conclusion: Extending the dream.

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Text of Note

""The American Dream" is one of the most familiar and resonant phrases in our national lexicon, so familiar that we seldom pause to ask its origin, its history, or what it actually means." "In this short history, Jim Cullen explores the meaning of the American Dream, or rather the several American Dreams that have both reflected and shaped American identity from the Pilgrims to the present. Cullen begins by noting that the United States, unlike most other nations, defines itself not on the facts of blood, religion, language, geography, or shared history, but on a set of ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and consolidated in the Constitution. At the core of these ideals lies the ambiguous but galvanizing concept of the American Dream, a concept that for better and worse has proven to be amazingly elastic and durable for hundreds of years and across racial, class, and other demographic lines. Cullen then traces a series of overlapping American dreams: the quest for religious freedom that brought the Pilgrims to the "New World"; the political freedom promised in the Declaration; the dream of upward mobility, embodied most fully in the figure of Abraham Lincoln; the dream of home ownership, from homestead to suburb; the intensely idealistic - and largely unrealized - dream of equality articulated most vividly by Martin Luther King, Jr. The version of the American Dream that dominates our own time - what Cullen calls "the Dream of the Coast"--Is one of personal fulfillment, of fame and fortune all the more alluring if achieved without obvious effort, which finds its most insidious expression in the culture of Hollywood."--Jacket.

American Dream.

National characteristics, American.

Social values-- United States.

United States, Civilization, Philosophy.

United States, Politics and government, Philosophy.

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Class number

Book number

Cullen, Jim,1962-

Date of Transaction

20140220094151.0

Cataloguing Rules (Descriptive Conventions))

rda

Electronic name

[Book]

Y