Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture

With the same exacting scholarship, brilliant cultural analysis, and stylish prose that won him a Pulitzer Prize for A Machine That Would Go of Itself, Kammen examines the paradox of American tradition. How, he asks, did the " land of the future" acquire a past? And how has our collective memory of that past been distorted--and, at times, manufactured? 145 photos.