No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920Pantheon Books, 1981 - 375 pages T. J. Jackson Lears draws on a wealth of primary sources -- sermons, diaries, letters -- as well as novels, poems, and essays to explore the origins of turn-of-the-century American antimodernism. He examines the retreat to the exotic, the pursuit of intense physical or spiritual experiences, and the search for cultural self-sufficiency through the Arts and Crafts movement. Lears argues that their antimodern impulse, more pervasive than historians have supposed, was not "simple escapism," but reveals some enduring and recurring tensions in American culture. "It's an understatement to call No Place of Grace a brilliant book. . . . It's the first clear sign I've seen that my generation, after marching through the '60s and jogging through the '70s might be pausing to examine what we've learned, and to teach it."--Walter Kendrick, Village Voice "One can justly make the claim that No Place of Grace restores and reinterprets a crucial part of American history. Lears's method is impeccable."--Ann Douglas, The Nation |
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 1 |
Official Modern Culture in Industrial | 7 |
The Republican Tradition and the Radical Specter | 26 |
Copyright | |
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Adams's aesthetic aestheticism ambivalence Anglo-Catholic antimodern antimodern impulse antimodernists Arts and Crafts Artsman Atlantic Monthly autonomy became belief Bigelow Boston bourgeois bourgeoisie Brooks Catholic chap Charles Chartres childlike Christian Church civilization conflict craft leaders Craftsman Cram crisis of cultural critics critique cult cultural authority domestic ideal dominant educated ego ideals embodied emerging emotional experience faith fascination father fear feminine Gothic Handicraft Harper's Monthly Harvard Henry Adams historical Ibid ideology individual industrial intellectual labor late nineteenth century late-Victorian liberal literary Lodge Lowell martial ideal masculine medieval Middle Ages mind modern culture moral mysticism Nation neurasthenia Nirvana North American Review Norton overcivilized popular premodern progress Protestant Protestantism psychic quest Ralph Adams Cram reform religion religious republican revitalization revival ritual Ruskin Scudder secular seemed selfhood sense social society spiritual Stickley superego tion tradition twentieth unconscious urban values Van Wyck Brooks Victorian Vida Dutton Scudder vitalist vitality William wrote York