Notions of the Americans, 1820-1860.

This volume, chronologically the third in the series entitled THE AMERICAN CULTURE, takes its title from James Fenimore Cooper's book published in 1828. As the image of Jacksonian America emerges for us in the fascinating array of contemporary documents and visual materials Professor Grimsted presents, we seem to be looking in the mirror of the United States today. "Because few permanent relationships intervened between the individual and the mass, there was a loneliness and unhappiness despite manifold evidence of success and comfort."