The Refinement of America

Bol

This lively and authoritative volume makes clear that the quest for taste and manners in America has been essential to the serious pursuit of a democratic culture. Spanning the material world from mansions and silverware to etiquette books, city planning, and sentimental novels, Richard L. Bushman shows how a set of values originating in aristocratic court culture gradually permeated almost every stratum of American society and served to prevent the hardening of class consciousness. A work of immense and richly nuanced learning, The Refinement of America newly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values.

Bol Partner

An exploration of style, taste, beauty, and politeness in American architecture, furnishings, fiction, and other areas after 1720 examines how these concerns changed American environment and a large segment of American culture.