TY - JOUR
AU - Stern, Andrew
AB - 620 The Journal of American History September 2008 revenge than innocence. In the end, Sturken’s American exceptionalism. In all those ways, reading of the sites does not always ring true angels offer a lens through which to interpret since she never asks visitors why they come to American history. The element of American these places or what message they take away. culture to which angels contribute most signif- Sturken’s analysis of contemporary consumer icantly is transtheism, a belief “in many spiri- culture is stimulating but, by focusing so much tual forces that come together in an underly- on kitsch, glosses over some of the complexity ing unity” (p. 97). Figures from virtually every of meaning that makes these places such pow- religious tradition sit in the angelic pantheon, erful sites of memory. and Americans of all religious affiliations em - brace them. Angels are thus on the cutting Kenneth E. Foote edge of the emergence of a new faith that is University of Colorado deeply rooted in American culture and has be- Boulder, Colorado come increasingly prominent over the past few decades. American Angels: Useful Spirits in the Material This account raises, but leaves unanswered, World. By Peter Gardella. 
TI - American Angels: Useful Spirits in the Material World. By Peter Gardella. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. x, 285 pp. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-7006-1537-7.)
JF - The Journal of American History
DO - 10.2307/25095780
DA - 2008-09-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/american-angels-useful-spirits-in-the-material-world-by-peter-gardella-gOtDXvyn3f
SP - 620
EP - 620
VL - 95
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -