Description
About the Author
About the Author: David Shi is President of Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. He is the author of The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture and America: A Narrative History.
Reviews
"A rich, brilliantly written discussion of the ideas, evolution and exposition of varieties of realism in American culture from slightly before the Civil War to the end of World War I....Shi's hand is so sure and his insights are so interesting that it transforms one's reading into a fresh encounter. I have been constantly intrigued by the twists and turns of his argument, by the juxtapositions and comparisons he makes, and by the way he weaves insights from one arena of culture into explorations of another. In this fashion, literary and art works, architecture, science, philosophy, and so forth are seen as text at one point and context at another. The result is a truly rich and fascinating exposition....I cannot name another historian of American culture whose prose is more forceful or inviting."--James Gilbert, author of Work Without Salvation and A Cycle of Outrage
"An enviable combination of clarity and subtlety....I have frankly, up to now, not come across a truly clear and persuasive description of realism and exactly how it related to idealism, naturalism, and modernism in American art and literature. Shi's book performs that service. Because it covers such a long time span, deals with the most central cultural events, includes such a wide range of creative people, and is so unambiguously and engagingly written, it is bound to have a broad and lasting impact."--Walter Nugent, author of Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations and Structures of American Social History
"An outstanding survey of Realism in American culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book analyzes the Realistic mentality in literature, painting, architecture and other cultural endeavors. It reveals a dynamic idea of Realism that both depicted and analyzed the realities of daily living. Realism left an enduring legacy, and is still functioning. This book is a welcome addition to the historical analysis of modern American culture."--H. Wayne Morgan, author of America's Road to Empire
"Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Mr. Shi's timely reminder of this pragmatist faith in the transforming power of representation is how alien it feels in our own day; when relations between distinct groups within American society are weakening, and when the hope of changing the world by reimagining it is diminishing. One closes Mr. Shi's book with a sense of gratitude for writers who once tried to restore and sustain these relations and that hope."--The New York Times Book Review
"A history of the shift of the American mind from romanticism to realism from just before the Civil War to the end of World War I."--The New York Times Book Review
"Shi's brisk and, at times, dizzying survey of the arts focusses on the American taste for realism."--The New Yorker (Recommended Reading)
Book Information
ISBN 9780195106534
Author David E. Shi
Format Paperback
Page Count 416
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 154mm * 231mm * 25mm