Death of a Nation: American Culture and the End of Exceptionalism (Critical American Studies)

400 Pages·2002·1.56 MB·English

by  David W. Noble

Death of a Nation
Critical American Studies Series
George Lipsitz,University ofCalifornia–San Diego,Series Editor
Death ofa Nation: American Culture and the End ofExceptionalism
David W.Noble
The Culture Concept: Writing and Difference in the Age ofRealism
Michael A.Elliott
Not the Triumph but the Struggle:
The1968Olympics and the Making ofthe Black Athlete
Amy Bass
The New American Studies
John Carlos Rowe
Those without a Country: The Political Culture ofItalian American Syndicalists
Michael Miller Topp
American Studies in a Moment ofDanger
George Lipsitz
Death of a Nation
American Culture and the
End of Exceptionalism
David W.Noble
Foreword by George Lipsitz
Critical American Studies
University ofMinnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Copyright 2002 by the Regents ofthe University ofMinnesota
All rights reserved.No part ofthis publication may be reproduced,stored in
a retrieval system,or transmitted,in any form or by any means,electronic,
mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,without the prior written
permission ofthe publisher.
Published by the University ofMinnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South,Suite 290
Minneapolis,MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Noble,David W.
Death ofa nation :American culture and the end ofexceptionalism /
David W.Noble.
p. cm.— (Critical American studies series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-8166-4080-7 (acid-free paper) — ISBN 0-8166-4081-5 (pbk.:
acid-free paper)
1. Criticism—United States—History—20th century. 2. Nationalism
and literature—United States—History—20th century. 3. Literature and
history—United States—History—20th century. 4. American
literature—History and criticism—Theory,etc. 5. United
States—Civilization—20th century. 6. United States—Historiography.
I. Title. II. Series.
PS78 .N63 2002
801'.95'09730904—dc21 2002009538
Printed in the United States ofAmerica on acid-free paper
The University ofMinnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memories ofmy grandmothers,Lucinda and Willahmina,
and my mothers,Estelle and Agnes
To my wife Gail and our two youngest grandchildren,Ella and Zach
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Contents
Foreword:The Unpredictable Creativity ofDavid Noble ix
George Lipsitz
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction:Space Travels xxiii
ONE
The Birth and Death ofAmerican History 1
TWO
Historians Leaving Home,Killing Fathers 38
THREE
The Crisis ofAmerican Literary Criticism from World War I
to World War II 79
FOUR
Elegies for the National Landscape 106
FIVE
The New Literary Criticism:The Death ofthe Nation Born
in New England 129
SIX
The Vanishing National Landscape:Painting,Architecture,Music,
and Philosophy in the Early Twentieth Century 151
SEVEN
The Disintegration ofNational Boundaries:Literary Criticism
in the Late Twentieth Century 215
EIGHT
The End ofAmerican History 250
Epilogue 287
Notes 303
Index 337
F O R E W O R D
The Unpredictable Creativity of David Noble
George Lipsitz
The temporal distance separating us from the past is not a dead
interval but a transmission that is generative ofmeaning.
—Paul Ricoeur,Time and Narrative
David Noble is an original and generative thinker.For more than five
decades,his writings have offered us unparalleled insights into the U.S.
nation and its collective imagination.Like most historians,he concerns
himself with change over time,with what can be learned once we real-
ize that part of “what things are” lies in “how they came to be.” But
Noble is not just interested in whatwe know,he also wants us to think
abouthowwe know.His analyses probe beneath surface appearances to
reveal unexamined assumptions and uninterrogated ideologies embed-
ded in the seemingly neutral terms and concepts that we use when we
think about national history,national culture,and national belonging.
Noble shows how the dominant intellectual traditions of the United
States have produced distinctly nationalist ways ofknowing and think-
ing that have most often served the selfish interests ofelites.He asks us
to examine the forms of cognitive mapping that lead us to think of our-
selves primarily as national citizens and national subjects,to understand
the origins and implications of the enduring belief that our nation re-
mains uniquely innocent and pure in a corrupt and degraded world,
and to contemplate the contradictions that emerge when a bounded
nation believes itself entitled to boundless markets.Although Noble’s
many and varied writings over the years have encompassed a dazzling
ix