American identity has been built up thanks to important events that made history and more significantly their history. This set composed of four documents sheds light on the Americans’ relation to their shared past and their various ways of relating to it.
Document A is an excerpt from the introduction of Daniel Boorstin’s essay The Genius of American Politics published in 1958. Boorstin was part of the Consensus school, a school of historians thought that agreed on their view America, based on its unity and uniqueness. With a philosophical approach, Boorstin emphasizes his point of view through examples without evoking historical events and compares America’s history to Europe’s.
Document B is an oil painting by Howard Chandler Christy dating
