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Michael Kammen

 
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Michael Kammen
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Michael Kammen (b. 1936) is a professor of American History and Culture at Cornell University, where he has been on the faculty since 1965. His research interests focus on US cultural history, primarily 19th and 20th century.

He is the author of numerous books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization (1973). Recent publications include:

  • A Time to Every Purpose: The Four Seasons in American Culture (2004)
  • Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of Passionate Observer (1999)
  • American Culture, American Tastes: Social Change and the Twentieth Century (1999)
  • In the Past Lane: Historical Perspectives on American Culture (1997)
  • Kemmen is a past president of the Organization of American Historians, and from 1981 to 1994 served as a trustee of the New York State Historical Association. A distinguished historian and worldwide lecturer, he has been called a "genial observer and friendly critic of his own profession."

    Last updated: March 16, 2009.

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    Works: Works by Michael Kammen
     
    (b. 1936)

    1996The Lively Arts: Gilbert Seldes and the Transformation of Cultural Criticism in the United States. Kammen's biography of Seldes paints an attractive portrait of the booster of lowbrow art. Kammen is a distinguished historian who has taught at Cornell University and won a Pulitzer Prize for People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization (1972).

     
    Wikipedia: Michael Kammen
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    Michael Kammen is a professor of American cultural history in the Department of History at Cornell University. He was born in 1936 in Rochester, New York, grew up in the Washington, DC area, and was educated at the George Washington University and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1964). He has taught at Cornell since completing his graduate studies at Harvard. He began his career in the 1960s, and won his first renown, as a scholar of the colonial period of American history. But over the last 30 years his scholarship and his teaching interests have broadened to include legal, cultural and social issues of American history of the 19th and 20th centuries as well.

    Kammen has been active in organizations advancing the study of history, and served as president of the Organization of American Historians for the 1995-96 year.

    Kammen's major works include:

    • People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization, which won the Pulitzer Prize (1973)
    • Colonial New York: A History. Millwood, NJ: K+O Press, 1975. ISBN 0195107799
    • A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (1986), which won the Francis Parkman Prize and the Henry Adams Prize. In this work, Kammen describes constitutional governance not so much as a machine, but rather as an organism.
    • Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991)
    • Contested Values: Democracy and Diversity in American Culture (1995)
    • American Culture, American Tastes: Social Change and the 20th Century (1999)
    • A Time to Every Purpose: The Four Seasons in American Culture (2004)

    See also


     
     

     

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    Answers Corporation AnswerNote. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Michael Kammen" Read more

     

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    From Today's Highlights
    May 9, 2005

    The Civil War divided a nation, whereas the American Revolution created and unified it. The Civil War exposed our vilest flaws, whereas the Revolution shaped our character and (we generally assumed) displayed our courage, principles, and high-mindedness for all the world to see.
    - Michael Kammen

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