Routledge History of the American Dream

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

3 979 kr

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Beskrivning

This handbook tracks the emergence, transformations, contradictions, and global circulation of the American Dream from the colonial period to the present.Bringing together scholars from history, literary studies, American studies, media studies, and related fields, the volume demonstrates how the Dream has functioned simultaneously as a promise of opportunity and a mechanism of exclusion. The chapters examine how narratives of chosenness, settler colonialism, westward expansion, and imperial ambition laid the foundations for American exceptionalism long before the term itself was coined by James Truslow Adams in 1931. They explore how migrants from Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean helped construct and reinterpret the Dream through mobility, labor, and struggles for belonging. Other chapters analyze labor movements, homeownership, automobility, masculinity, LGBTQ+ activism, neoliberalism, environmental crises, and popular culture as central sites where the Dream was produced, contested, and reinvented. Throughout, the handbook emphasizes that the American Dream has never been universally accessible nor confined to the borders of the United States. Instead, it emerges as a transnational and deeply intersectional formation whose enduring power lies precisely in its flexibility, contradictions, and emotional force.The Routledge History of the American Dream will be of interest to scholars of American history, American studies, cultural studies, political history, and migration history. It is also suitable for general readers seeking a historically grounded understanding of the American Dream.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2026-12-17
Mått:178 x 254 x undefined mm
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Routledge Histories
Antal sidor:506
Förlag:Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISBN:9781032323206

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Mer om författaren

M. Michaela Hampf is Professor of Transcultural History of North America at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Her research spans the cultural, social, and political history of the United States; transnational and global history; gender and the military; the history of the body, migration and the media.Katharina Vester is Associate Professor of History and American Studies at American University, USA. She is the author of A Taste of Power: Food and American Identities (2015) and researches food, body culture, gender, and citizenship in the United States. Her teaching and scholarship emphasize interdisciplinary, transnational, and public-facing approaches to American history and culture.

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction: The American Dream and Its Discontents. Part I — Chosenness, Expansion, and the Promise of America. Divine Intervention: Early Settler Society and the Belief in Chosenness. Westward Expansion and the Frontier. The California Gold Rush and the American Dream. Nicaragua and the American Dream. America in Space: Dreams and Nightmares. Part II — Migration, Mobility, and Belonging. The American Allure and the Social Meanings of the American Dream in Nineteenth-Century Europe. The American Dream in Nineteenth-Century Migrant Letters: The Negotiation of Promises, Expectations and Experiences of the "New World" in German Emigrant Correspondence. Mexico and the American Dream. A Dream Deferred? The American Dream and the Japanese American Experience. Boat People, Refugees, and the American Dream. Asian American Dreams: Undocumented Immigrant Youth Organizing. Part III — Labor, Cities, and Everyday Life. Workers, the Labor Movement, and the American Dream. Alcohol and the American Dream. The American Dream and the Automobile. Dreaming America in the New Negro Era. Homeownership, Racial Segregation, and the (Broken) American Dream. Part IV — Bodies, Gender, and Citizenship. Nineteenth-Century Women's "American Dreams". Women's Rights Activism and the American Promise. American Dreamers: Hegemonic Masculinity in Crisis and Beyond? The Struggle for Gay and Transgender Rights and the American Dream. Part V — Crisis, Dissent, and Reinvention. The Great Depression and the American Dream. African American Activism and the American Dream. The Beat Generation and the American Dream. The American Dream and Environmental History. The American Dream and Neoliberalism. Part VI — Imagining the Dream. "Anything your heart desires will come to you…": Disney and the American Dream. Popular Music and the American Dream. Selected Bibliography.