The stammering century

History

First published: 1928
Print length: 414 pagesThe John Day Company, 1928

Description

Gilbert Seldes recovers a nineteenth-century America often excluded from the standard national story: religious revivals, utopian settlements, reform crusades, cults, fads, and the magnetic leaders who gathered followers around them. Moving from Jonathan Edwards and evangelical perfectionism to the Rappites, Oneida, and Carrie Nation, he asks why so many Americans believed disciplined faith or communal experiment could conquer sin and remake society. He also traces these marginal energies forward into fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, prohibition, eugenics, and self-improvement movements. Curious about aspiration even when confronting fraud and fanaticism, the book presents the century’s eccentric currents as forces that helped shape modern American culture.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Direct · Essayistic · Witty

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Earnest · Reflective · Warm

Structure

Chronological nonfiction · Episodic

Focus

Ideas · Information

Emotional intensity

2 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

CommunityMoralityPolitics and ideologyPowerReligion and faithTransformation

About Gilbert Seldes

Gilbert Seldes was an American critic and writer whose career ranged across magazines, theater, radio, film, television, and higher education. As an editor and drama critic at The Dial and a contributor to Vanity Fair and the Saturday Evening Post, he brought sustained attention to popular culture and the institutions that produced it. His work joined cultural history to public criticism of the media. In The Stammering Century, he constructs an alternative account of nineteenth-century America from revivals, utopian communities, reform crusades, cults, and fads. His direct, essayistic method moves among movements and their magnetic leaders, treating eccentric belief with curiosity while tracing its influence into fundamentalism, prohibition, eugenics, and self-improvement.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: The John Day Company
Language: English

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