GOD'S COUNTRY AND MINE

by Jacques Barzun ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1954

A more than passing glance at the American scene, at the conduct and temper of our life and the conventions and distortions of our culture, alternately rebuts and reproves with more wit than malice and with a real feeling for the country he has chosen. Our heterogeneous heritage, and the pluralism of the patterns borrowed by a Cinderella country from an elder European sister; statistical living, as we are assaulted by an array of numbers; values- and the search for a tenable ethics; the new scientific front- and the many ""organic snarls"" it has created rather than dispelled; the intellectual, and our attitudes toward the artist; our methods of recreation- and our spoken manners-- all this is part of a general critique which narrows down and sharpens up against the gadgeteer; the doctor; the element of guff which becomes swish when in action; the identification and glorification of sex (""a subject of research and conversation, a pastime, a prahblem, a duty, and sometimes. . . a pleasure""); the household- and the children; etc. etc. For those who liked, or liked not liking, Geoffrey Gorer's The American People (Norton-1948) this is again an estimate of our habitat and our habits which is written with grace as well as acuity and which will leave the reader amused, disabused, and a little shamefaced.

Pub Date: March 15, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown-A.M.P.

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION