A01=George Santayana
Author_George Santayana
Category=JBCC
Category=QDHR
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780803292512
- Weight: 255g
- Publication Date: 01 May 1998
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
George Santayana probably did more than anyone except Alexis de Tocqueville to shape the critical view of American culture. The great philosopher and writer coined the phrase “genteel tradition,” introducing it to a California audience in 1911. The phrase caught fire, giving a name to the culture of the republic.
Santayana’s address appears in this collection of influential essays about the country he lived in from 1872 to 1912. Because he remained European in spirit, the Spaniard brought a sharp detachment to his observations. He points out the American split between thought and action, theory and practice, the traditional and the modern, the arts and business, the high-brow and the popular. He also examines the excessive moralism in national life, which baffles Europeans. These nine essays touch on American idealism and materialism and American endeavor, sacred and profane.
Also the editor of Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book, Douglas L. Wilson is Lawrence Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Knox College. Robert Dawidoff, a professor of history at Claremont Graduate School, is the author of The Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage: High Culture vs. Democracy in Adams, James, and Santayana.
