Daniel J. Boorstin
Daniel J. Boorstin
Daniel Joseph Boorstinwas an American historian at the University of Chicago, writing on many topics in American history and world history. He was appointed twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in 1975 and served until 1987. He was instrumental in the creation of the Library of Congress Center for the Book...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth1 October 1914
CountryUnited States of America
hero media
The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media.
hero men names
The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name.
america selfishness spirit
Jeffersonian isolationism expressed an essentially cosmopolitan spirit. The Jeffersonian was determined - even at the expense of separating himself from the rest of the globe, and even though he be charged with provincial selfishness - to preserve America as an uncontaminated laboratory.
character men would-be
Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.
visions-of-the-future community done
In the small town each citizen had done something in his own way to build the community. The town booster had a vision of the future which he tried to fulfill. The suburb dweller by contrast started with the future
discovery two different
The American experience stirred mankind from discovery to exploration. From the cautious quest for what they knew (or thought they knew) was out there, into an enthusiastic reaching to the unknown. These are two substantially different kinds of human enterprise.
cinema lenses form
The traditional novel form continues to enlarge our experience in those very areas where the wide-angle lens and the Cinema screen tend to narrow it.
land form jew
Dispersed as the Jews are, they still form one nation, foreign to the land they live in.
science library tentacles
[The Library of Congress] is a multimedia encyclopedia. These are the tentacles of a nation.
politics social characteristics
Standing, standing, standing - why do I have to stand all the time? That is the main characteristic of social Washington.
bible thinking world
In the twentieth century our highest praise is to call the Bible 'The World's Best Seller.' And it has come to be more and more difficult to say whether we think it is a best seller because it is great, or vice versa.
knowledge technology fog
The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
miracle deny refusal
While the Jeffersonian did not flatly deny the Creator's power to perform miracles, he admired His refusal to do so.
men landscape scene
The institutional scene in which American man has developed has lacked that accumulation from intervening stages which has been so dominant a feature of the European landscape.