USA: A Culture or a Civilization?
M.V. Kamath
THROUGH THE EYES OF THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL ESSAYS IN AMERICAN STUDIES by Bruce A. Lohof Macmillan, New Delhi, 1979, 180 pp., 40.00
Jan-Feb 1979, volume 3, No 4

I read Through the Eyes of the World with a growing sense of frustration harassed by the thought that none of the contributors really came to grips with the American phenomenon. It is difficult enough to come to an understanding of, say, Japan or France, nations made up, for the most part, of people belonging to the same culture, speaking the same language, moulded by the same land and nurtured by the same tradition. How much harder should it be to appreciate America and Americans whose motto E Pluribus Unum had been devised in the optimistic hope that the Union will triu­mph over the seen obstacles of provin­cial diversity! ‘Who is this Man, this American?’ as Crevecouer said.Indeed, who is he? Is he the black, sweating it out in the cotton fields of Mississippi, the Polish-American in Chi­cago, the Jew in New York, the true­-blue brahmin of White Anglo-Saxon protestant heritage, the Peurto Rican of the ghettoes or the lace curtain Irishman of Boston? And when we speak of the American culture what exactly is it that is referred to? Is it the culture of Levit­town, the culture of the ‘Gold Coast’ of Washington, the culture of Burning Tree Golf Club or the culture of the Maine coast fisherman?

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