Using letters, diaries, memoirs, medical records, and psychological studies,this wide-ranging book uncovers the profound pain felt by Americans on the move from the country's founding until the present day. Susan Matt shows how colonists in Jamestown longed for and often returned to England, African Americans during the Great Migration yearned for their Southern homes, and immigrants nursed memories of Sicily and Guadalajara and, even after years in America, frequently traveledhome. Homesickness today is dismissed as a sign of immaturity, what children feel at summer camp, but in the nineteenth century it was recognized as a powerful emotion. When gold miners in California heard the tune "Home, Sweet Home," they sobbed. When Civil War soldiers became homesick, army doctors sent themhome, lest they die. Such images don't fit with our national mythology, whichcelebrates the restless individualism of colonists, explorers, pioneers, soldiers, and immigrants whosupposedly left home and never looked back.Using letters, diaries, memoirs, medical records, and psychological studies, this wide-ranging book uncovers the profound pain felt by Americans on the move from the country's founding until the present day. Susan Matt shows how colonists in Jamestown longed for and often returned to England, African Americansduring the Great Migration yearned for their Southern homes, and immigrants nursed memories of Sicily and Guadalajara and, even after years in America, frequently traveled home. Theseiconic representatives of the undaunted, forward-looking American spirit wereoften homesick, hesitant, and reluctant voyagers. National ideology and modern psychology obscure this truth, portraying movement as easy, but in fact Americans had to learn how to leave home, learn to be individualists. Eventoday, in a global society that prizes movement and that condemns homesickness as a childish emotion, universities counsel young adults and their families on how to manage the transition away from home, suburbanites pine for their old neighborhoods, and companies take seriously the emotional toll borne by relocated executives and road warriors. In the age of helicopter parents and boomerang kids, and the new social networks that sustain connections across the miles, Americans continue to assertthe significance of home ties.By highlighting how Americans reacted to moving farther and farther from their roots, Homesickness: An American History revises long-held assumptions abouthome, mobility, and our national identity. INDICE: Introduction Chapter One: Emotions in Early America Chapter Two: Painful Lessons in Individualism Chapter Three: A House Divided Chapter Four: Breaking Home Ties Chapter Five: Immigrants and the Dream of Return Chapter Six: Transferring Loyalties Chapter Seven: Mama's Boys, Organization Men, Boomerang Kids, and the Surprising Persistence of the Extended Family Conclusion Of Helicopter Parents, Facebook, and Wal-Mart: Homesickness in Contemporary America Notes Bibliography Acknowledgements
- ISBN: 978-0-19-537185-7
- Editorial: Oxford University
- Encuadernacion: Cartoné
- Páginas: 368
- Fecha Publicación: 29/09/2011
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés