The End of the American Avant Garde: American Social Experience Series

by Stuart D. Hobbs

Overview

"By 1966, the composer Virgil Thomson would write, "Truth is, there is no avant-garde today." How did the avant garde dissolve, and why? In this thought-provoking work, Stuart D. Hobbs traces the avant garde from its origins to its eventual appropriation by a conservative political agenda, consumer culture, and the institutional world of art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814773253
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	02/01/1997
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	242
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

A historian with the Ohio Historical Society, Stuart D. Hobbs received his Ph.D. in American History from Ohio State University.

Editorial Reviews

Traces the avant garde from its origins to its eventual appropriation by a conservative political agenda, consumer culture, and the institutional world of art. Synthesizes the work of literary, art, and music historians with a fresh examination of primary source materials, while examining the intellectual and cultural history of this country. Divided into four sections chronologically, the text cites the influence of figures like Jack Kerouac, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollack. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

A significant work for intellectual and cultural historians, this is a tight, . . . focused examination of an important aspect of recent American culture.

Choice

Hobbs provides ample grounds for readers to ponder the interplay between particular movements in the arts and a larger American culture in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

American Historical Review