Tapping into that unique American angst so perceptively captured by de Tocqueville more than a century ago, Delbanco (humanities, Columbia Univ.) here finds that any history of hope in America "must make room at its center for this dogged companion of hope--the lurking suspicion that all our getting and spending amounts to nothing more than fidgeting while we wait for death." Drawing from U.S. history, he charts this Hegelian swing between optimistic energy and melancholy chaos, characterized most dramatically by the Puritans, Lincoln, Whitman, and Emerson. Yet amidst that melancholy there remains a hope focused on our "unshakeable craving for transcendence." Thus, says Delbanco, to be truly American is to live a life of hope, contributing some transcendent good beyond ourselves; otherwise, we condemn ourselves to a lifetime of despair. For the historically literate, this represents as fine a synthesis as can be found on hope and the longing for something more in the collective American soul. Recommended for public and academic American history and religion collections.--Sandra Collins, Univ. of Pittsburgh Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
It is certainly possible, as Delbanco suggests, that Americans are now on the verge of some fourth, wholly new stage beyond God, nation and marketplace. It seems more likely, though, that God, nation and marketplace have always braided themselves together in imperfect ways that admit of continual improvement.
One can, of course, imagine a nation without a consumerism that divided religion intensively into individual market segments. Or a constitution that ardently enlisted religiosity to sanctify its symbols of overarching social unity. Of a progressivism that sought to bring God too much into the world. Or a capitalism that pushed him too far away. In such a nation, the "ache for meaning", as Delbanco calls it, might have found the relief about which he writes. But that nation would not be—and never could have been—America.The (London) Times Literary Supplement
Self, Delbanco points out, will surely prove an empty, unsatisfying, and ultimately self-defeating object of worship. Unless we recover some sense of a common good, he suspects, we may be headed for moral collapse–or worse yet, the rise of some nefarious ideology or movement. Delbanco does not believe that the apocalyptic 'rough beast' of despotism is right around the corner–or inevitable. But he offers his jeremiad as a timely warning and a reminder of things that matter.Christian Science Monitor
Reflections on American conceptions of happiness and hope—and of how they have grown weak. Originating in the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard, this slim volume has the characteristics of the civilization about which its author reflects: it is large with desire and disheveled in its pursuit. Delbanco, a professor in humanities at Columbia (The Death of Satan, 1995; Required Reading, 1997), writes of the function of hope in creating the Christian and national narratives of American life. And, without adequately developing the juxtaposition, he insightfully contrasts the sustaining force of hope with the melancholy that comes with its absence. He does so through a quotation-filled review of much of American history—citing everyone from John Winthrop to today's pundits. While he tries to distinguish himself from the Jeremiahs of right and left, in the end he lands about where they stand: deeply troubled by our inability to imagine a common destiny and to reattach our lives to a sense of moral progress. Confidence in such progress, he insists in his most striking assertion, nourished the pursuits of our greatest forebears, from the Puritans through Lincoln into figures of this century. But now such hopes are weak because our narrative and symbolic life, previously sustained by belief, first in God, then in nation, has become so impoverished. To have hope in ourselves alone is to have lost "the real American dream," which was to share in some public responsibility, whether it was founding the kingdom of God on earth, preserving the Union, creating true equality, or pursuing more modest programs of reform, succor, and help.Unfortunately, the book possesses the attributes of the lectures from which it originated: it can only suggest and not demonstrate. Ranging learnedly and widely, this is less a work of scholarship, on which it is deeply based, than a personal testament to the melancholy to which learning has led its author.
An acute social critic surveys the soul of a country that believes first in God, then in nation (exemplified in the secular ambitions of Lincoln and Whitman), and finally in the narcissistic self, which has created a ‘post-modern melancholy’ in today’s culture.
The ‘fundamental question’ for the American mind, Andrew Delbanco says in The Real American Dream , ‘has always been how to find release from this feeling of living without propulsion and without aim’; what he has written is a short but deeply literate history of this quest, one by turns witty and affecting.
Times Literary Supplement - Andrew Stark
Andrew Delbanco is one of America’s most acute and perceptive cultural critics… [This is] a beautifully written book.
It must be terribly satisfying to hear Andrew Delbanco speak. The Real American Dream , a series of lectures he gave at Harvard in 1998, is filled with impressive oratory. He manages sermons and political speeches with facility, invoking great voices from our nation’s history to contemplate the present state of the American Dream. Buttressing these far-reaching speeches with the quieter arts of poetry and prose, Delbanco builds a broad yet detailed ‘history of hope’ in the United States… Lucid empathy permeates Delbanco’s chapters, and earns the book’s subtitle, A Meditation on Hope .
Boston Book Review - Doug Elder
God, Nation, and Self: through these, writes Delbanco in these essays (so brief, yet so pertinent), the citizens of the U.S. have given their lives meaning to ward off melancholy, that ‘logical belief in a hopeless future.’ Puritan Calvinism seems benign next to consumerist Calvinism. That’s Calvinism as in Calvin Klein, where the free individual—the U.S.’s great gift to the world—is ‘marooned in a perpetual present, playing alone with its baubles,’ and the ‘ache for meaning goes unrelieved.’ But Delbanco’s wit is itself the measure of the land of the free.
One wishes that Delbanco had had more space to develop the nuances he plays like a cellist using vibrato… Delbanco, among the most astute and original scholars of history and literature, wisely and convincingly develops the point made by Tocqueville: ‘Faith is the only permanent state of mankind.’ By plumbing the faith of our fathers and mothers—its wrinkles and rosy cheeks—we can begin to rededicate ourselves to a new story of transcendence.
We’re in what Andrew Delbanco has identified as the third phase of the history of hope in America—or, rather, the history of hope’s disintegration… Americans, Delbanco says, have lost any sense of a common destiny. We have nothing larger than ourselves to worship… Unlike William Bennett and his ilk, Delbanco hasn’t written a prescription for spiritual renewal. He simply charts the path to our current post-modern holding pattern: waiting for the next big idea, hoping for the return of hope. He might not have the answer for us, but his voice provides a quiet comfort in the empty darkness.
Willamette Week - Becky Ohlsen
A fascinating, eminently accessible series of culture-forming ‘stories’ that focus on the pitched battle between the force of melancholy and that of hope. In the stories, Delbanco ruminates on American culture from the Puritans to the present. What binds the seemingly disparate stories of serious-minded ministers, secular politicians, and modern materialistic Americans is the struggle to find meaning in a world that often appears to be entirely random and spiritually incomplete.
Philadelphia Inquirer - Sanford Pinsker
In a tour de force of thoughtful intellectual and cultural history, the author reflects broadly on the history of the American dream. Moving deftly from the Puritans to contemporary America, Delbanco laments the loss of a common culture in our modern commercialized New Age. As a ‘meditation on hope’ he follows Emerson, who wrote: ‘let us do what we can to rekindle the smouldering nigh quenched fire on the altar.’
Virginia Quarterly Review
Delbanco’s lecture-based essay is engaging and very timely.
Self, Delbanco points out, will surely prove an empty, unsatisfying, and ultimately self-defeating object of worship. Unless we recover some sense of a common good, he suspects, we may be headed for moral collapse—or worse yet, the rise of some nefarious ideology or movement. Delbanco does not believe that the apocalyptic ‘rough beast’ of despotism is right around the corner—or inevitable. But he offers his jeremiad as a timely warning and a reminder of things that matter.
Christian Science Monitor - Merle Rubin
According to Andrew Delbanco, today’s consumerism exists to assuage our spiritual emptiness… Lurking behind our credit-card debt is the suspicion that our shopping sprees equate to nothing more than fidgeting while we wait to die. In [his] conclusion, Delbanco…[directs] to our attention the elemental human need to believe in something larger than the insular self, and identifies the solutions that filled this need in the past. These solutions are thoughtfully presented as guidance for us now.
Columbus Dispatch - Kassie Rose
A close and passionate reader of American literature, Delbanco believes that contemporary American culture has lost its once vital sense of the transcendent... His profoundly insightful readings of William Bradford, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln and other American writers, stretching from early colonial times to the present, should succeed in prodding readers to think deeply about how the idea of the nation intersects--or doesn't--with their deepest desires and hopes.-- "Publishers Weekly"The Real American Dream is a concise, provocative narrative essay.--Kassie Rose "Columbus Dispatch"tour de force of thoughtful intellectual and cultural history, the author reflects broadly on the history of the American dream. Moving deftly from the Puritans to contemporary America, Delbanco laments the loss of a common culture in our modern commercialized New Age. As a 'meditation on hope' he follows Emerson, who wrote: 'let us do what we can to rekindle the smouldering nigh quenched fire on the altar.'-- "Virginia Quarterly Review"The Real American Dream , a series of lectures he gave at Harvard in 1998, is filled with impressive oratory. He manages sermons and political speeches with facility, invoking great voices from our nation's history to contemplate the present state of the American Dream. Buttressing these far-reaching speeches with the quieter arts of poetry and prose, Delbanco builds a broad yet detailed 'history of hope' in the United States... Lucid empathy permeates Delbanco's chapters, and earns the book's subtitle, A Meditation on Hope .--Doug Elder "Boston Book Review"The Real American Dream , 'has always been how to find release from this feeling of living without propulsion and without aim'; what he has written is a short but deeply literate history of this quest, one by turns witty and affecting.--Andrew Stark "Times Literary Supplement"
A critical premise of this remarkable book about creating hope in an absurd world is Delbanco's definition of culture. He refers to it as a sustaining narrative that provides stories and symbols 'by which Americans have tried to save themselves from the melancholy that threatens all reflective beings.' With this in mind, he then identifies and ponders our historical devotion to God, nation and self, trends that have come into fashion at different times in American history...The Real American Dream is a concise, provocative narrative essay.
Columbus Dispatch - Kassle Rose
God, Nation, and Self: through these, writes Delbanco in these essays (so brief, yet so pertinent), the citizens of the U.S. have given their lives meaning to ward off melancholy, that 'logical belief in a hopeless future.' Puritan Calvinism seems benign next to consumerist Calvinism. That's Calvinism as in Calvin Klein, where the free individual—the U.S.'s great gift to the world—is 'marooned in a perpetual present, playing alone with its baubles,' and the 'ache for meaning goes unrelieved.' But Delbanco's wit is itself the measure of the land of the free.
We're in what Andrew Delbanco has identified as the third phase of the history of hope in America—or, rather, the history of hope's disintegration...Americans, Delbanco says, have lost any sense of a common destiny. We have nothing larger than ourselves to worship...Unlike William Bennett and his ilk, Delbanco hasn't written a prescription for spiritual renewal. He simply charts the path to our current post-modern holding pattern: waiting for the next big idea, hoping for the return of hope. He might not have the answer for us, but his voice provides a quiet comfort in the empty darkness.
Delbanco's lecture-based essay is engaging and very timely.
According to Andrew Delbanco, today's consumerism exists to assuage our spiritual emptiness...Lurking behind our credit-card debt is the suspicion that our shopping sprees equate to nothing more than fidgeting while we wait to die. In [his] conclusion, Delbanco...[directs] to our attention the elemental human need to believe in something larger than the insular self, and identifies the solutions that filled this need in the past. These solutions are thoughtfully presented as guidance for us now.
Self, Delbanco points out, will surely prove an empty, unsatisfying, and ultimately self-defeating object of worship. Unless we recover some sense of a common good, he suspects, we may be headed for moral collapse—or worse yet, the rise of some nefarious ideology or movement. Delbanco does not believe that the apocalyptic 'rough beast' of despotism is right around the corner—or inevitable. But he offers his jeremiad as a timely warning and a reminder of things that matter.
Christian Science Monitor
A fascinating, eminently accessible series of culture-forming 'stories' that focus on the pitched battle between the force of melancholy and that of hope. In the stories, Delbanco ruminates on American culture from the Puritans to the present. What binds the seemingly disparate stories of serious-minded ministers, secular politicians, and modern materialistic Americans is the struggle to find meaning in a world that often appears to be entirely random and spiritually incomplete.
The 'fundamental question' for the American mind, Andrew Delbanco says in The Real American Dream , 'has always been how to find release from this feeling of living without propulsion and without aim'; what he has written is a short but deeply literate history of this quest, one by turns witty and affecting.
Times Literary Supplement
It must be terribly satisfying to hear Andrew Delbanco speak. The Real American Dream , a series of lectures he gave at Harvard in 1998, is filled with impressive oratory. He manages sermons and political speeches with facility, invoking great voices from our nation's history to contemplate the present state of the American Dream. Buttressing these far-reaching speeches with the quieter arts of poetry and prose, Delbanco builds a broad yet detailed 'history of hope' in the United States...Lucid empathy permeates Delbanco's chapters, and earns the book's subtitle, A Meditation on Hope .
An acute social critic surveys the soul of a country that believes first in God, then in nation (exemplified in the secular ambitions of Lincoln and Whitman), and finally in the narcissistic self, which has created a 'post-modern melancholy' in today's culture.
New York Times Book Review
One wishes that Delbanco had had more space to develop the nuances he plays like a cellist using vibrato...Delbanco, among the most astute and original scholars of history and literature, wisely and convincingly develops the point made by Tocqueville: 'Faith is the only permanent state of mankind.' By plumbing the faith of our fathers and mothers—its wrinkles and rosy cheeks—we can begin to rededicate ourselves to a new story of transcendence.
