Daniel J. Boorstin

An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him.

First published in 1962, this wonderfully provocative book introduced the notion of “pseudo-events”—events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported—and the contemporary definition of celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knownness.” Since then Daniel J. Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

By piecing the lives of selected individuals into a grand mosaic, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin explores the development of artistic innovation over 3,000 years. A hugely ambitious chronicle of the arts that Boorstin delivers with the scope that made his Discoverers a national bestseller. Even as he tells the stories of such individual creators as Homer, Joyce, Giotto, Picasso, Handel, Wagner, and Virginia Woolf, Boorstin assembles them into a grand mosaic of aesthetic and intellectual invention. In the process he tells us not only how great art (and great architecture and philosophy) is created, but where it comes from and how it has shaped and mirrored societies from Vedic India to the twentieth-century United States.

Winner of the Bancroft PrizeIn this brilliantly original book, written for the general reader, the American past becomes richly meaningful to the present.

From the time of Socrates to today, humans have sought the answers to fundamental questions: Who are we? Why are we here? Previous bestsellers, The Discoverers & The Creators, told how we discovered the reality of our world, then celebrated artistic achievements. Boorstin now turns to the great figures in history who sought meaning & purpose in existence. He says Western culture has seen three grand epics of Seeking. There was 1st the heroic way of prophets & philosophers--men like Moses, Job, Socrates, Plato & Aristotle, as well as those in the communities of the early church & the Protestant Reformation--seeking salvation or truth from the god above or the reason within everyone. Then came an age of communal seeking, with people like Thucydides & Thomas More, Machiavelli & Voltaire pursuing civilization & the liberal spirit. Finally, there was an age of the social sciences, when man seemed ruled by the forces of history. Here are the stories of exceptional men such as Marx, Spengler, Toynbee, Carlyle, Emerson, Malraux, Bergson & Einstein. These thinkers still have the power to speak to us, not always so much for their answers as for their way of asking the questions that intrigue or obsess. This climax to his trilogy again shows Boorstin's ability to present challenging ideas coupled with sharp portraits of great writers & thinkers.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A study of the last 100 years of American history.

This second volume in "The Americans" trilogy deals with the crucial period of American history from the Revolution to the Civil War. Here we meet the people who shaped, and were shaped by, the American experience—the versatile New Englanders, the Transients and the Boosters. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Discoverers demonstrates the truth behind the aphorism that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the face of the world would have been changed. Boorstin goes on to uncover the elements of accident, improvisation and contradiction at the core of American institutions and beliefs.

This history of the United States chronicles the spirit, ingenuity, and accomplishments of American men and women, from the earliest pioneers to the present

A fascinating introduction to American culture as it has shaped and been shaped by events from the Pilgrims to the mid-1800s. Written by the former Librarian of Congress. NEW full-color edition, completely revised for readability. Now includes timelines, maps and more than twice the illustrations. Oversized.

In this provocative new collection, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel J. Boorstin explores the essential "hidden history" of the American experience that is overlooked by most historians. In twenty-four essays -- divided into five sections, "The Quest for History," "A By-Product Nation," "The Rhetoric of Democracy," "Unsung Experiments," and "The Momentum of Technology" -- Daniel J. Boorstin examines significant rhythms, patterns, and institutions of everyday American from his intimate portraits of such legendary figures as Paul Revere, Abigail Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, to more expansive discussions of historical phenomena, such as the Therapy of Distance and the Law of Survival of the Unread.

A fascinating introduction to American culture as it has shaped and been shaped by events from the Civil War to the late 20th century. Written by the former Librarian of Congress. NEW full-color edition, completed revised for readability. Now includes timelines, maps and more than twice the illustrations. Oversized.

In this classic work by one of America's most distinguished historians, Daniel Boorstin enters into Thomas Jefferson's world of ideas. By analysing writings of 'the Jeffersonian Circle,' Boorstin explores concepts of God, nature, equality, toleration, education and government in order to illuminate their underlying world view. The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson demonstrates why on the 250th anniversary of his birth, this American leader's message has remained relevant to our national crises and grand concerns."The volume is too subtle, too rich in ideas for anyone to do justice to it in brief summary, too heavily documented and too carefully wrought for anyone to dismiss its thesis. . . . It is a major contribution not only to Jefferson studies but to American intellectual history. . . . All who work in the history of ideas will find themselves in Mr. Boorstin's debt."—Richard Hofstadter, South Atlantic Monthly

How much of our political tradition can be absorbed and used by other peoples? Daniel Boorstin's answer to this question has been chosen by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for representation in American Panorama as one of the 350 books, old and new, most descriptive of life in the United States. He describes the uniqueness of American thought and explains, after a close look at the American past, why we have not produced and are not likely to produce grand political theories or successful propaganda. He also suggests what our attitudes must be toward ourselves and other countries if we are to preserve our institutions and help others to improve theirs.". . . a fresh and, on the whole, valid interpretation of American political life."—Reinhold Niebuhr, New Leader

From the Mayflower Compact of 1620 to President Johnson's 1965 Address of Voting Rights, here are documents that will endure as long as our nation exists. The eighty-three selections in this volume span the spectrum of American political, economic and cultural history as it was made, and as it was lived. All are put in clear perspective as they are analyzed by distinguished historians."Splendid and generous reading ... a rich, vivid, and comprehensive piece of Americana." —The New York Times Book Review

In this lively, authoratative, and above all inspiring introduction to American History, Boorstin focuses on people, recounting how men and women, fired by heart and spirit, traveled from all corners of the globe to America and become its people. A tribute to America's shared heritage, this book is itself a heritage that every family will want to share, again and again.This edition includes both volumes of "The Landmark History of the American People". Volume 1 is From Plymouth to Appomattox (originally published 1968); Volume 2 is From Appomattox to the Moon (originally published 1970).

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Referred to as the "bible of American lawyers," Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England shaped the principles of law in both England and America when its first volume appeared in 1765. For the next century that law remained what Blackstone made of it. Daniel J. Boorstin examines why Commentaries became the most essential knowledge that any lawyer needed to acquire. Set against the intellectual values of the eighteenth century-and the notions of Reason, Nature, and the Sublime— Commentaries is at last fitted into its social setting. Boorstin has provided a concise intellectual history of the time, illustrating all the elegance, social values, and internal contradictions of the Age of Reason.

s/t: Reflections on Everyday America

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Boorstin has spent a lifetime exploring facets of the American experience. This new addition to the Modern Library is an omnibus collection drawn from his many books, including the monumental trilogy The Americans.

In this lively book, Pulitzer prize-winning historian Boorstin, author of the widely acclaimed trilogy The Americans, illuminates our everyday concerns with his reflections on the new meaning of technology for America and of America for technology. He gives us a bold new view of the two kinds of revolution - the political and technological - and shows us how and why they are different, and why technological revolutions are irreversible.We are a center from which radiate forces that converge human experience everywhere. Though people around the world may not love one another any more than they did, yet their ways of life tend to become more and more alike. These same overwhelming forces of technology that homogenize the culture of the human race have disrupted the international community of nations; large and small nations become "equal," but each day the word "nation" grows more meaningless.Ideology, tribalism, nationalism, the crusading spirit in religion, bigotry, censorship, racism, persecution, immigration and emigration restriction, tariffs, and chauvinism do interpose barriers. For reasons which we are only beginning to discover, and which Boorstin explores in this controversial book, these barriers will only be temporary. The converging powers of technology will eventually triumph.

Presents a history of the United States from European exploration to the Presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Illustrates the evolution of American society, from the indigenous peoples, through the colonists, the Civil War, immigrants, and the Depression, to today

A selection of Daniel Boorstin's writings about books, reading, and libraries.

Distinguishing between the discoverer and the explorer, the eminent American historian surveys the American tradition of exploration, identifying Amerca's salient contribution to human life as its vision-expanding willingness to seek out and enter into the unknown

s/t: Or, The application of Professor X

The Decline of Radicalism is a symptom, as Professor Boorstin explains, of our movement from Experience (the appeal to what we share) to Sensation (the appeal to what is inexpressible, ineffable). In this book Boorstin draws on our everyday experience to give us clues both to our tradition and to what has made it, and to our current disorders. The reader will find unexpected answers to our most common questions.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year From the author of The Discoverers and The Creators , an incomparable history of man's essential "Who are we?" and "Why are we here?"

s/t: Reflections on American Thought