T. J. Jackson Lears draws on a wealth of primary sources — sermons, diaries, letters — as well as novels, poems, and essays to explore the origins of turn-of-the-century American antimodernism. He examines the retreat to the exotic, the pursuit of intense physical or spiritual experiences, and the search for cultural self-sufficiency through the Arts and Crafts movement. Lears argues that their antimodern impulse, more pervasive than historians have supposed, was not "simple escapism," but reveals some enduring and recurring tensions in American culture. "It's an understatement to call No Place of Grace a brilliant book. . . . It's the first clear sign I've seen that my generation, after marching through the '60s and jogging through the '70s might be pausing to examine what we've learned, and to teach it."—Walter Kendrick, Village Voice "One can justly make the claim that No Place of Grace restores and reinterprets a crucial part of American history. Lears's method is impeccable."—Ann Douglas, The Nation

No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920

History

Lears, T.J. Jackson

Americas

University of Chicago Press

A new edition of a classic work of American history that eloquently examines the rise of antimodernism at the turn of the twentieth century.\nFirst published in 1981, T. J. Jackson Lears’s No Place of Grace is a landmark book in American studies and American history, acclaimed for both its rigorous research and the deft fluidity of its prose. A study of responses to the emergent culture of corporate capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century, No Place of Grace charts the development of contemporary consumer society through the embrace of antimodernism—the effort among middle- and upper-class Americans to recapture feelings of authentic experience. Rather than offer true resistance to the increasingly corporatized bureaucracy of the time, however, antimodernism helped accommodate Americans to the new order—it was therapeutic rather than oppositional, a striking forerunner to today’s self-help culture. And yet antimodernism contributed a new dynamic as well, “an eloquent edge of protest,” as Lears puts it, which is evident even today in anticonsumerism, sustainable living, and other practices. This new edition, with a lively and discerning foreword by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, celebrates the fortieth anniversary of this singular work of history.

No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920

T. J. Jackson Lears draws on a wealth of primary sources â€” sermons, diaries, letters â€” as well as novels, poems, and essays to explore the origins of turn-of-the-century American antimodernism. He examines the retreat to the exotic, the pursuit of intense physical or spiritual experiences, and the search for cultural self-sufficiency through the Arts and Crafts movement. Lears argues that their antimodern impulse, more pervasive than historians have supposed, was not "simple escapism," but reveals some enduring and recurring tensions in American culture. "It's an understatement to call No Place of Grace a brilliant book. . . . It's the first clear sign I've seen that my generation, after marching through the '60s and jogging through the '70s might be pausing to examine what we've learned, and to teach it."â€”Walter Kendrick, Village Voice "One can justly make the claim that No Place of Grace restores and reinterprets a crucial part of American history. Lears's method is impeccable."â€”Ann Douglas, The Nation

NO PLACE OF GRACE

Pantheon

A new look at a neglected aspect of Sargent's oeuvre.

Sargent: The Late Landscapes

Arts & Photography

Hirshler, Erica E.

Goldfarb, Hilliard T.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

History & Criticism

Isabella Stewart Gardner

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