Fictions of U.S. history : a theory and four illustrations / Frances Richardson Keller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Keller, Frances Richardson, 1917-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fictions, Theory of.

Ideology--Social aspects--United States.

Ideology.

Patriarchy.

Ideology--Social aspects.

United States--Historiography.

United States.

Historiography.

United States--History--Philosophy.

History.

Philosophy.

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.

Local Subjects:

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.

Physical Description:

184 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2002]

Summary:

Fictions of U.S. History offers a new definition of the term "fictions." A fiction is not merely the imaginative literature we treasure in works of novelists, dramatists, and poets. It is that. But it is much more. A fiction is a powerful, driving idea that enters the life an individual lives, the course a whole society travels, and the stories historians tell about the long stretches of the human past. In many dimensions, fictions affect every person on planet Earth. We all live lives based on fictions.

This book expands that definition; then it presents illustrations that demonstrate how dominant fictions of a given time emerge and are entrenched, and how historical actors have come to accept or reject these fictions given their personal experiences. The first illustration concerns "the grandest fiction," the patriarchal system, its origins, effects, and future. The second addresses the fictions that dominated stories historians told about the Reconstruction after the American Civil War. The third centers upon the emergence and demise of Mormon polygamy as a fiction in the nineteenth century. The fourth and last illustration considers the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, tracing her life and the fictions that empowered her living.

The beginning and the end reveal something of the author's involvement with the issues in this book; while she can only guess how she came to the deep concerns of her travels, she does see her book as an expression of her own fictions.

Contents:

Fictions and the missions of history: our fictions, our missions, our selves

The grandest fiction

The scramble after the Civil War

From Mormon polygamy to American monogamy: shifting fictions in the life of a society

Eleanor Roosevelt: changing fictions in the life of an individual.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-177) and index.

ISBN:

0253340764

OCLC:

47804986