| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 185 words from this article are provided below; about 515 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Michael Kammen. American Culture, American Tastes: Social Change and the 20th Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1999. Pp. xxvii, 320. $30.00.

For much of the twentieth century, social scientists and cultural critics made "taste" a subject of scrutiny. Whether observers saw taste as an instrument of power or a weapon of defiance depended on their personal experience, political leanings, and intellectual sympathies. Regardless of perspective, most of these self-appointed experts approached their subjects with irony and biting wit. Perhaps the greatest chronicler of who liked what and why, Harper's editor Russell Lynes, in 1949 went so far as to categorize and thereby codify the hierarchy of American tastes in an oft-quoted essay, "Highbrow, Lowbrow, Middlebrow." On Lynes's heels in the 1950s came books and articles by a new generation of writers, many of whom were concerned to critique the supposed decline of high culture and "good taste." In their eyes, the culprit responsible for the extinction was mass culture; the agents of decline were the bureaucracy, the media, and other, often "corporate," evils. . . .

There are about 515 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.