A New Introduction to American Studies, Edition: 1

by Howard Temperley

"A New Introduction to AMerican Studies 4th edition "provides a coherent portrait of American history, literature, culture and society, and also deals with some of the central themes and preoccupations of American life.Using fundamental influences like the machine and the city, and subjects such as imagery and icongraphy, myth, national identity, ideology, popular culture and painting are analysed in order to provoke students into thinking about what it actually means to study a culture.For introductory undergraduate courses in American Studies, American History and American Literature.

Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[terez ₊˚ʚ · Rating 1 out of 5]

girl what the fuck

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no idea why I picked this up from a charity shop, but I liked it much more than I thought I would. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Native Americans, American Woman and ideas of the West.

The history-themed chapters were better than the literary-based ones. There was too much focus on male authors. If you aren't prepared to mention more than a couple of women in your chapters then there should have been a separate chapter about their contributions. How can you write a chapter about American literature and not even mention arguably the most well-known American novel of all (to non-American readers anyway) - Little Women?

On another note, I would have liked a section about musicals as this is another area in which America has been hugely influential, and certainly, to pick two obvious ones, West Side Story and Oklahoma, have much to say about American views of themselves and their society.

Overall though, I think this was a good introduction.