Skip to product information
1 of 1

American Humor

American Humor

A Study of the National Character

by Constance Rourke, introduction by Greil Marcus

Regular price $18.95
Regular price $0.00 Sale price $18.95
Format

Stepping out of the darkness, the American emerges upon the stage of history as a new character, as puzzling to himself as to others. American Humor, Constance Rourke's pioneering "study of the national character," singles out the archetypal figures of the Yankee peddler, the backwoodsman, and the blackface minstrel to illuminate the fundamental role of popular culture in fashioning a distinctive American sensibility. A memorable performance in its own right, American Humor crackles with the jibes and jokes of generations while presenting a striking picture of a vagabond nation in perpetual self-pursuit. Davy Crockett and Henry James, Jim Crow and Emily Dickinson rub shoulders in a work that inspired such later critics as Pauline Kael and Lester Bangs and which still has much to say about the America of Bob Dylan and Thomas Pynchon, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.by Constance Rourke, introduction by Greil Marcus

Additional Book Information

Series: NYRB Classics
ISBN: 9781590170793
Pages: 280
Publication Date:

Praise

The most original piece of investigation and interpretation that has appeared in American cultural history. It is in every way a brilliant book.
— Lewis Mumford

View full details
  • Shopping for someone else but not sure what to give them? Give them the gift of choice with a New York Review Books Gift Card.

    Gift Cards 
  • A membership for yourself or as a gift for a special reader will promise a year of good reading.

    Join NYRB Classics Book Club 
  • Is there a book that you’d like to see back in print, or that you think we should consider for one of our series? Let us know!

    Tell us about it