American Niceness : A Cultural History / Carrie Tirado Bramen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bramen, Carrie Tirado, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Friendship--United States--History.

Friendship.

Kindness--United States--History.

Kindness.

National characteristics, American--Public opinion--History.

National characteristics, American.

Visitors, Foreign--United States--Attitudes--History.

Visitors, Foreign.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 pages)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Despite Fanny Trollope's dismissal of Americans as tobacco chewing, patriotic boors, travelers have a long history of commenting on American friendliness. Alexis De Tocqueville observed that their sociability made Americans more akin to the French than the "unfriendly disposition of the English." And Rudyard Kipling remarked, "it is perfectly impossible to go to war with these people, whatever they may do. They are much too nice." Although it often goes unnamed as a pattern of behavior, niceness pervades the assumptions, discourses, and the everyday conduct of and about Americans. But how and when did Americans become associated with being nice? Carrie Tirado Bramen argues that in the nineteenth century niceness became an indispensable part of a democratic personality that was friendly and accessible, free from the Old World snobbery of a class-ridden society. It defined the geist of a white settler nation based on transience and cohered through a common affect that Bramen calls "manifest cheerfulness." American niceness has figured in a national fantasy of American exceptionalism, based neither exclusively nor even primarily on military might and economic prowess, but on more mundane attributes such as friendliness. The distinctiveness of Americans has been largely shaped through the language of sociality and the importance of likability.-- Provided by publisher

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction: American Niceness and the Democratic Personality

1. Indian Giving and the Dangers of Hospitality

2. Southern Niceness and the Slave’s Smile

3. The Christology of Niceness

4. Feminine Niceness

5. The Likable Empire from Plymouth Rock to the Philippines

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Aug 2018)

ISBN:

9780674982369

0674982363

9780674982345

0674982347

OCLC:

1054880061