The American Century: Varieties of Culture in Modern Times is a 1997 book by Norman F. Cantor with Mindy Cantor.
In this book Norman Cantor, who is best known for his treatment of medieval European history, traces 20th-Century Western intellectual thought, including art, literature, philosophy, psychology, criticism, and other intellectual disciplines. As the title implies, Cantor devotes the most space to describing the intellectual trends in the United States, but only to the degree that he believes the United States has dominated 20th-Century Western culture. Cantor also describes the writings and accomplishments of intellectuals from other Western countries, particularly France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
The book is divided into several broad headings, including Modernism, Psychoanalysis, and Postmodernism. In chapters entitled "Marxism and the Left" and "Traditions on the Right", Cantor describes, often critically, aspects of both left-wing and right-wing intellectual trends and institutions.
Mindy Cantor, an art historian, prepared the photo essays which provide a glimpse of representative styles of 20th-Century art and architecture.
The book is written in an informal style and Cantor offers his own idiosyncratic interpretation of major intellectual events of the 20th Century.
Famous quotes containing the words american, varieties, culture, modern and/or times:
“Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6.
“All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with.”
—Robert Motherwell (1915–1991)
“Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme, now high, now low, in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven with the chant.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)