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Introduction the Next American Century?

Martin Halliwell and Catherine Morley

in American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century

The introduction traces the changing patterns of American thought and culture in its transition into the early twenty-first century, looking particularly at two perceived turning points: the ... More

The introduction traces the changing patterns of American thought and culture in its transition into the early twenty-first century, looking particularly at two perceived turning points: the political swing back towards the right represented by the election of George W. Bush in November 2000 and the attacks of 11 September 2001. Considering whether the early events of the new century represented a rupture or continuity with the closing years of the twentieth century, the authors, Martin Halliwell and Catherine Morley, go on to discuss ideas of nationhood, the transnational, and the ideological and geographical reconfiguration of the United States with reference to historical figures like Randolph Bourne and contemporary commentators such as Janice Radway, Thomas Friedman and Samuel Huntington. All eighteen of the contributing chapters are introduced in overview in order to remap the United States in the early century and to reassess the nation’s place within world affairs.Less

Social Experiments with Modernism

Darby English

in 1971: A Year in the Life of Color

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book focuses two exhibitions that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the heart of United States cultural ... More

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book focuses two exhibitions that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America and The DeLuxe Show. Of the book's questions, the largest are simply, what did these exhibitions do to color, actually and conceptually? And how did this doing both reflect and affect the ways the larger culture was metabolizing color? The activities studied occurred at the fringes of modernist culture, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and revived a social dimension from which modernism had been almost fully decoupled. As a result they mattered in ways that will have to be reconstructed.Less

When We Talk about Public Health

Michael D. Stein and Sandro Galea

in Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's Health

This chapter studies how people talk about public health issues. During the 2016 presidential campaign, there was little discussion by candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton of public health ... More

This chapter studies how people talk about public health issues. During the 2016 presidential campaign, there was little discussion by candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton of public health issues. Indeed, according to a study that combed the texts of major campaign speeches, interviews, and advertisements made by candidates Trump and Clinton for public health keywords, general references to “health” accounted for less than 1% of the words used by the candidates. It is worth noting what the authors of the study considered to be “health topics.” The study focused on six “public health issues”: wellness, diet, disease prevention, substance abuse, workplace standards, and vaccinations. There is no disagreement that these are public health issues. However, it would be a shame if this short list constitutes the entire political discourse about public health. Housing, health disparities, immigration, aging, mental health and substance use, military medicine, the environment, criminal justice, food policy, health technology, disability/injury, and health care delivery—this is something closer to the full list of forces that shape the public’s health in contemporary America. Politicians and the public already use more than 1% of their words discussing these topics. However, the public health implications of these issues are rarely addressed.Less

Longing for the Bomb

Lindsey A. Freeman

in Longing for the Bomb: Oak Ridge and Atomic Nostalgia

This concluding chapter addresses the longing of residents of Oak Ridge for the days when the city was a muddy frontier at the beginning of the Atomic Age. Such a longing was shaped by positive ... More

This concluding chapter addresses the longing of residents of Oak Ridge for the days when the city was a muddy frontier at the beginning of the Atomic Age. Such a longing was shaped by positive memories of working for a secret atomic bomb project, but it was also colored with nostalgia for an imagined golden age of mid-twentieth-century America. In addition, this sentiment not only describes an opinion about the past; it also betrays a vision of contemporary America as a nation divided and in decline; a nation that has lost, or is in the act of losing, its purpose and character.Less

Conclusion Hints Followed by Guesses

in Heaven's Kitchen: Living Religion at God's Love We Deliver

Volunteers did not engage in many overt discussions about deep, meaningful things. They claimed that the work they did together was self-evidently important and valuable, and they questioned anyone's ... More

Volunteers did not engage in many overt discussions about deep, meaningful things. They claimed that the work they did together was self-evidently important and valuable, and they questioned anyone's attempt to ground it in something obviously ideological. The heat of arguments that sometimes erupted around small issues of kitchen procedure pointed toward ways of understanding how talk and practice worked in the kitchen. This chapter develops a picture that confirms some recent understandings of religion in contemporary America and challenges others. This tangle of daily speech genres and indirect talk about religion in the kitchen suggests that religious practice and talk in daily life are far from being diffuse and vague. Emphasizing the specificity of contexts and interactions is an obvious extension of current work in the sociology of culture.Less

Epilogue: A Century of Latin American Music

Pablo Palomino

in The Invention of Latin American Music: A Transnational History

The epilogue describes the recent history of political and diplomatic regional projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was the context in which the research behind this book took place. It ... More

The epilogue describes the recent history of political and diplomatic regional projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was the context in which the research behind this book took place. It reflects, on the one hand, on the links between contemporary regional formation and the consolidation of Latin American music as a cultural category, and on the links between this category and other geocultural categories in world history, on the other. Finally, it argues in favor of considering Latin America as a project, instead of a given framework, a natural reality, or a historical necessity, and situates the study of Latin American music within a broader reflection on the future possibilities for regionalist projects.Less

A Vicarious Instinct

Thomas Waldman

in Vicarious Warfare: American Strategy and the Illusion of War on the Cheap

This chapter explores the concept of vicarious warfare in terms of its deeper historical background in socio political forms, material-technological developments and opportunities, as well as its ... More

This chapter explores the concept of vicarious warfare in terms of its deeper historical background in socio political forms, material-technological developments and opportunities, as well as its basis in the evolution of military and strategic thought. It identifies broader patterns and conditions that might assist our appreciation of the vicarious military approaches and provide a rough framework for our analysis of contemporary US strategic practice. The chapter also argues that the conduct of vicarious warfare in a holistic sense only becomes meaningful in certain historical conditions. In exploring these issues, the chapter presents a necessarily impressionistic historical analysis centred around broad recurring patterns apparent at different times in different periods; it utilizes representative cases, drawn mainly from European history, to tease out dynamics that have been apparent across other cultures and periods. Ultimately, the chapter offers some initial clues as to those deep underlying factors that might predispose and permit societies, including contemporary America, to wage the vicarious warfare. It also shows how states that had begun to amass significant power often took advantage of opportunities to adopt forms of vicarious warfare and to evade, minimize or limit the costs and requirements of war.Less

Perversions of Power

Thomas Waldman

in Vicarious Warfare: American Strategy and the Illusion of War on the Cheap

This chapter examines the peculiar trait of an empire and the implications of imperial dominion. The chapter presents broad insights from the Roman Empire and the 19th-century European empires ... More

This chapter examines the peculiar trait of an empire and the implications of imperial dominion. The chapter presents broad insights from the Roman Empire and the 19th-century European empires (mainly the largest of these, the British Empire) to shed light on the pressures and possibilities that foreign dominion brings. It also analyzes how states produced a distinct mix of strategic requirements, motivating incentives, emerging opportunities and changing social and cultural patterns, which serve to promote the adoption of vicarious approaches. However, imperial factors are only conditioning rather than determinative in this respect. Deep normative factors such as military and strategic culture may largely preclude a drift toward vicariousness. Ultimately, the chapter argues that these explorations are suggestive, if not determinative, in pointing to issues associated with the contemporary US experience. It provides whispers of warnings about the dangers that might threaten states that follow too closely in similar footsteps.Less