Mystic Chords Of Memory The Transformation Of Tradition

Historians have often described the reconciliation between northerners and southerners after the Civil War as a process of selective forgetting. The shared Union and Confederate experience of courage-under-fire quickly supplanted the root causes of the war and the longstanding sectional acrimony between North and South in the public memory. As Michael Kammen suggested in his 1991 book Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture historical meaning is imbued with concern for the present. For many Americans, North and South in the late nineteenth-century, â€Å"present† concerns were economic progress and stability. Sectional discord and enmity stood in the way of rebuilding the nation, and prosperity required letting bygones-be-bygones. New narratives sutured from selected historical memories were crafted to expedite the national healing process and to appeal to the sentiments of northerners who romanticized the bucolic Old South and its aristoc ratic order. Although nostalgia for a pre-industrial past played its part in fostering reunion, Reiko Hillyer, in Designing Dixie: Tourism, Memory, and Urban Space, argues that it was the mutual economic interests of northern capitalists and southern boosters that were central to reconciliation, and shaping the development of the New South. In Designing Dixie, Hillyer shows how southern boosters, competing with the western frontier for northern investment, recast the image of the South from a ruralShow MoreRelatedEssay on Christopher Columbus1931 Words   |  8 PagesAmericas national memory is filled with icons and symbols, avatars of deeply held, yet imperfectly understood, beliefs. The role of history in the iconography of the United States is pervasive, yet the facts behind the fiction are somehow lost in an amorphous haze of patriotism and perceived national identity. Christopher Columbus, as a hero and symbol of the first order in America, is an important figure in this pantheon of American myth. His status, not unlike most American icons, is representativeRead MoreThomas Paine And John Paine Essay1835 Words   |  8 Pagesthe following specialists: Michael Kammen, history; Sacvan Bercovitch, literary theory; Peter Miller, literary theory; and Winthrop Jordan, history. Michael Kammen is a renowned author best known for the following works: Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture; A Machine that Would go of Itself: The Constitution of American Culture; and People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization. Kammen is a professor of American history andRead MoreKhasak14018 Words   |  57 Pagesmodern. He lifted himself to the rarified realm of literary icons with his iconoclasm as well as irony. Sex, satire and deep sorrow marks much of writing. Vijayan has remained a thoroughly Indian writer by sustaining a certain continuity of the tradition established by Vaikom Muhammed Basheer. He achieves this by delving deeper into the subcultures and the subtle dialectical variations of Malayalam. He was an inclusive writer, his mind and the little world around him were his oyster. Vijayan wasRead MoreRastafarian79520 Words   |  319 Pagesstand in special relationship to the divine and to ha ve received special gifts or revelations.15 Because of charismas radical departure from the normative order, Weber regards it as â€Å"the great revolutionary force. †16 Being bound neither by past traditions nor by the present legal or rational structures of society, charisma is indeed revolutionary. The bearer of charisma â€Å"preaches, creates and demands new obligations—most typically, by virtue of revelation, oracle, inspiration, or by his own will