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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3 | The History Cooperative
91.3  
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December, 2004
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Book Review



The Chautauqua Moment: Protestants, Progressives, and the Culture of Modern Liberalism. By Andrew C. Rieser. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. xvi, 399 pp. $37.50, ISBN 0-231-12642-5.)

The term Chautauqua has long served an effective but contradictory cultural role: a symbol of democratic engagement for the National Endowment for the Humanities, yet a stand-in for the ignorant yahooism of H. L. Mencken's booboisie. Few scholars, however, have attempted to go beyond the label to explore this complex movement, so powerful during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 1
      Andrew C. Rieser breaks new ground in his sophisticated and exhaustive treatment of Chautauqua. Rieser's breadth of topics is impressive: he is as conversant with railroads and real estate as he is with religion and reform. Readers can easily come to understand from this respectful account why hundreds of thousands of middle-class Americans sought education and uplift, along with civic engagement and summertime fun, at both local assemblies and the main Chautauqua center in western New York. . . .

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