The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (Vintage)
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Much of the well-earned appeal of Samuel Lubell’s perceptive election reporting and predicting (The Future of American Politics (1952; Anchor paperback 1956); The Revolt of the Moderates (1956)) comes from the fact that in an era of statistical polling he deals not with images and norms of opinion, but with the motives, worries, and concerns (and in the very words) of actual individual voters.
One intriguing subject which I have been unable to pursue is the recent history of psychology, and especially the shifting focus of psychologists who are concerned with testing “intelligence” and “personality.” I suspect that a study of this shift might reveal still wider implications of the preoccupation with images which I describe in this volume. “What the first war did for the development of techniques for assessing intellectual functioning,” Dr. Gardner Lindzey remarks, “was almost exactly duplicated by World War II in the area of motivation.” (Ed. Gardner Lindzey, Assessment of Human Motives (1958;1960), p. 5) The elaboration of “projective techniques” and similar testing devices expresses less interest in the person’s capacity to handle the brute facts of life than in how he fits himself into an image. “The shift in focus for psychologists from the cognitive to the conative or motivational,” Dr. Lindzey goes on, “is nicely reflected in the fact that during the past decade and a half the Rorschach Test [using the interpretation of ink blots] and unconscious motivation have become as widely known and discussed by the general public as were the intelligence test and IQ some twenty-five years earlier.” What is often thus simply described as an increasing interest in “human motivation” may, from another point of view, also reveal an increasing interest in images, with some consequences suggested in my Chapters 5 and 6. Hints of these changing interests among psychologists, political scientists, and public administrators can be found in the massive Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: Vol. I, Samuel A. Stouffer and others, The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life (1949); Vol. II, Samuel A. Stouffer and others, The American Soldier: Combat and its Aftermath (1949); and Carl I. Hovland and others, Experiments in Mass Communication (1949). Special topics of interest in this connection can be followed in Hermann Rorschach, Psycho-diagnostics (Berne, 1942); Silvan Tomkins, The Thematic Apperception Test (1947); Claire H. Schiller (ed.), Instinctive Behavior: The Development of a Modern Concept (1957). The historical development of some of these notions can be followed in Jay Wharton Fay, American Psychology Before William James (1939); J. C. Flugel, A Hundred Years of Psychology (2d ed., 1951); and A. A. Roback, History of American Psychology (1952). The subject of language is also obviously related to these developments; a history of logical positivism might offer helpful hints. Some of the subtlest way-opening questions were asked by Benjamin Lee Whorf, whose works can be conveniently approached through his Language, Thought, and Reality (ed. John B. Carol, 1956).
Some original suggestions on the place of crime in American life (and American news) are found in Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (1960), especially Chapter 7, “Crime as an American Way of Life,” and Chapter 8, “The Myth of Crime Waves.” We still need more histories of American attitudes to sports and sports news.
A detailed history of American image-making efforts abroad would be of great value to the future historian of American life and morals. So far, some of the most perceptive studies have been by foreigners—for example, by the Italian journalist Luigi Barzini, Americans Are Alone in the World (1953). William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American (1958), seems to me more significant as an illustration than as a critique of what is the matter with our relations to other peoples. The authors criticize us for not doing better what we are already (but in my opinion should not be) trying to do, instead of asking whether we might not better be trying to do something else.
Acknowledgments
In the research for this book I have had the valuable aid of Harold D. Woodman, who superlatively combines the historian’s respect for fact with an eye for the large significance of detail. Without his selfless assistance this book could hardly have been written. I am also indebted to numerous friends, colleagues, and students at the University of Chicago; especially to Albert U. Romasco, who encouraged me to undertake this volume and who read and criticized the entire manuscript, and to Roger Shugg, who gave freely of his superb editorial judgment. One of the pleasures of writing this book was the opportunity to renew an old friendship with Simon Michael Bessie of Atheneum Publishers, who has patiently and ruthlessly reviewed the manuscript in all its stages. I also want to thank my other friends at Atheneum, especially Hiram Haydn and Marc Friedlaender, who have found time to read and criticize the book in detail. The manuscript has been prepared, copied, and recopied by Mrs. Ed Stack of Homewood, Illinois, to whose intelligence, efficiency, concern for detail, and devotion to the enterprise I owe more than I can say. Much of this book grows out of my research in various areas of American history over the past several years. Some of the ideas were first presented in “Democracy and Culture in America,” a paper at the conference on “Popular / Mass Culture: American Perspectives,” at the Ohio State University, October 28, 1960; “The American Image,” a talk to the Citizens’ Board of the University of Chicago, November 30, 1960; and “Varieties of Historical Experience,” a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City, December 29, 1960. A number of the notions and examples in this book were developed at the family dinner table and in discussions with my sons, Paul, Jonathan, and David. My principal editor, for this as for all my earlier books, has been my wife, Ruth F. Boorstin, who remains for me both final court of appeal and chief counsel.
BOOKS BY DANIEL J. BOORSTIN
CLEOPATRA’S NOSE
Essays on the Unexpected
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author demonstrates the truth behind the aphorism that if Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the face of the world would have been changed. For in this deliciously provocative book, Daniel J. Boorstin uncovers the elements of accident, improvisation, and contradiction at the core of American institutions and beliefs ranging from an analysis of the U.S. capital to an examination of our eternal faith in progress.
Nonfiction/Essays
HIDDEN HISTORY
Exploring Our Secret Past
This collection explores the essential “hidden history” of the American experience that is overlooked by most historians. In twenty-four essays, Boorstin examines significant rhythms, patterns, and institutions of everyday American life: from his intimate portraits of such legendary figures as Paul Revere, Abigail Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, to more expansive discussions of historical phenomena.
History
THE IMAGE
A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
First published in 1962, this book introduced the notion of “pseudo-events”—events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported—and the contemporary definition of celebrity as “a person who is know for his well-knownness.” Since then, Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish deception from truth in American culture.
History
EPIC INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
THE DISCOVERERS
A History of Man’s Search to Know
His World and Himself
Boorstin, bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, captures the remarkable history of man’s unending search for knowledge in these lively encounters with hundreds of giants who labored in defiance of superstition and dogma to expand our understanding—of the universe, of the mysteries of time, of the evolution and geography of our planet, of the mind, the body and the sociology of man, and of the history of history itself.
History
THE CREATORS
A History of the Imagination
In this hugely accomplished work, Daniel J. Boorstin produces a panoramic yet minutely detailed history of the ar
ts. Even as he tells stories of such individual creators as Homer, Joyce, Giotto, Picasso, Handel, Wagner, and Virginia Woolf, Boorstin assembles them into a grand mosaic that encompasses three thousand years of aesthetic and intellectual invention.
History
THE SEEKERS
The Story of Man’s Continuing Quest to Understand His World
Continuing the saga of man’s spiritual and intellectual development that began with The Discovers and The Creators, the author now introduces us to some of the great pioneering seekers whose faith and thought have for centuries led man’s search for meaning: Moses, Sophocles, Thomas More, Machiavelli, Marx, Einstein and others.
History
THE AMERICANS
THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE
Volume I
Boorstin presents “a superb panorama of life in America from the first settlements on through the white-hot days of the Revolution in an amazingly stimulating and brilliant study” (Saturday Review).
Winner of the Bancroft Prize
History
THE NATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Volume II
The second volume of Boorstin’s study of Americans explores problems of community and the search for a national identity. It is an “exceptionally good book [which] abounds in concrete, entertaining details, and in bright, original ideas about those fascinating people” (The New Yorker).
Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize
History
THE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIENCE
Volume III
The story of the last 100 years of American history is told “through countless little revolutions in economy, technology, and social rearrangements … illuminated by reflections that are original, judicious and sagacious” (Henry Steele Commager).
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
History
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