O Strange New World

In this impressive study one of our foremost cultural historians takes a fresh look at America as it appeared to itself, as well as to Europe, in its earliest years. Howard Mumford Jones believes, as he says in his preface, in "the profound and central truth that American culture arises from the interplay of two great sets of forces—the Old World and the New." His theme in this book is how in the years from the discovery of the new continent to the Jacksonian period of the young republic, and beyond, the Old World projected into the New "a rich, complex, and contradictory set of habits, forces, practices, values, and presuppositions," and how "the New World accepted, modified, or rejected these or fused them with inventions of its own." His account of the shaping of our national law, language, religion, and ideals of conduct, education, literature, and the arts by these complementary and sometimes conflicting influences will be recognized for its originality and vitality, and for the important new light it casts on American cultural beginnings.