Culture as History

Culture as History brings together the best of Warren Susman's essays. With amazing creativity, clarity, and wit, Susman takes us on an eye-opening tour of the highlights of American culture - nothing is too small or too large to catch his keen eye. Among the many topics discussed are Babe Ruth's rise to fame; Harriet Beecher Stowe's use of the Puritan past; Henry Ford and the Model T; the presentation of technology at the 1939 World's Fair; Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse; and the first self-help books in America. By looking at all types of twentieth-century culture - highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow - Susman shows how culture itself became a battleground for competing visions of American life.