{"product_id":"american-elegy-ed-simon-9781632461803","title":"American Elegy: Reflections on 250 Years of the Dis-United States of America","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBefore there was the United States, there was America. The former is a country, a nation, a geographic reality, but the latter\u003cbr\u003eis an idea. Invented more than discovered, \"America\" signified a revolutionary ideal of freedom, liberty, \u003cbr\u003eequality, and justice, what Tom Paine in \u003ci\u003eCommon Sense \u003c\/i\u003emeant when he wrote that \"We have it in our power to begin the world over again.\" \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmong the greatest expressions of that faith was the \u003ci\u003eDeclaration of Independence \u003c\/i\u003ewith its promise to forge a nation dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. American society and culture have always existed within the gulf of our stated aspirations and the actual reality, which has necessitated the forging of prophetic voices from Walt Whitman to Toni Morrison, Herman Melville to James Baldwin. Now, just as we prepare for the 250\u003csup\u003eth\u003c\/sup\u003e anniversary of the signing of the \u003ci\u003eDeclaration of Independence, \u003c\/i\u003ethe United States is succumbing to authoritarianism and the noxious blood-and-soil nationalism which curses the faith in the universal and indispensable America.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn response to this moment, noted cultural critic Ed Simon offers a rejoinder in \u003ci\u003eAmerican Elegy: Reflections on 250 Years of the Dis-United States of America. \u003c\/i\u003eCompiling an assemblage that's less a canon than a cultural mixtape, Simon presents fifty short chapters that are asynchronously organized works of flash criticism, meant to draw connections across time periods, which each celebrate an aspect of the \"America\" that's larger, deeper, \u003cbr\u003eand broader than the mere United States. Here the Great American Novel meets the Great American Songbook; sign language converses with the blues; method acting shares the stage with Afrofuturism, and Superman plays baseball. Defining \"literature\" as broadly as possible, each of the works profiled critiques the status quo and imagines a better world. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs cynical politicians deny the diversity, complexity, and actual beauty of American culture in favor of myths about the nation being made great again, Simon provides not just an elegy, but a challenge and celebration, as well as a repository, an archive, and a call to start over. In the tradition of Gary Wills and Greil Marcus, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Elegy\u003c\/i\u003e charts a course to a land still undiscovered.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ig Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50045207675073,"sku":"9781632461803","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0781\/5512\/0833\/files\/9781632461803.jpg?v=1773248398","url":"https:\/\/www.porchlightbooks.com\/products\/american-elegy-ed-simon-9781632461803","provider":"Porchlight Book Company","version":"1.0","type":"link"}