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
reading world dull
There was a time when the reader of an unexciting newspaper would remark, 'How dull is the world today!' Nowadays he says, 'What a dull newspaper!'
reading our-world world
By reading we discover our world, our history, and ourselves.
world lasts events
The world of crime is a last refuge of the authentic, uncorrupted, spontaneous event.
world emptiness made
God is the celebrity author of the world's best seller. We have made god into the biggest celebrity of all, to contain our own emptiness.
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.
people world environment
Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer.
travel agency world
The traveler used to go about the world to encounter the natives. A function of travel agencies now is to prevent this encounter.
technology republic world
The Republic of Technology where we will be living is a feedback world.
travel expectations actors
Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives- from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango - with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to-date scripts for actors on the tourists' stage.
real reality television
Nothing is really real unless it happens on television.
men history effort
History had been man's effort to accomodate himself to what he could not do. Amereican history in the 20th century would, more than ever before, test man's ability to accomodate himself to all the new things he could do.
interesting ruts needs
An enamored amateur need not be a genius to stay out of the ruts he has never been trained in.
war ignorance men
Probably no one of us has the True Religion. But all of us together - if we are allowed to be free - are discovering ways of conversing about the great mysteries. The pretense to know all the answers to the deepest mysteries is, of course, the grossest fraud. And any people who declare a Jihad, a holy war on unbelievers - those who do not share their believers' pretended omniscience - are enemies of thinking men and woman and of civilization. I see religion as only a way of asking unanswerable questions, of sharing the joy of a community of quest, and solacing one another in our ignorance.
simple america important
The most important American addition to the World Experience was the simple surprising fact of America. We have helped prepare mankind for all its later surprises.