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Flag: An American Biography
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Leepson notes that "no country in the world can match the intensity of the American citizenry's attachment to the... Stars and Stripes." He goes on to chart the evolution of the flag and Americans' relationship with it in its detail-packed history. Despite the famous image in George Washington Crossing the Delaware, Leepson (Saving Monticello) says, the general's boat did not display the Stars and Stripes; the Continental Congress hadn't yet determined what the American flag would be. And "flagmania," as a 19th-century newspaper termed it, began only with the start of the Civil War. Embraced by the Ku Klux Klan, burned by Vietnam War protestors, the Stars and Stripes was again embraced in the wake of 9/11 as a ubiquitous symbol of American solidarity. Such was the revived flagmania, Leepson relates, that the flag was used to sell everything from contact lenses to disposable diapers. From reverence to kitsch, Americans' attitudes to their flag and its mythology have changed over the years, and Leepson does a creditable job of recounting those changes just in time for July 4.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Chronicling the two-centuries-plus history of the U.S. flag, Leepson considers the abundant stories that purport to be the truth about Old Glory. That moniker, like Francis Scott Key's naming the flag the "star-spangled banner," arose from reliable historical sources. But other commonly accepted views of the flag are more dubious, such as its depiction in historical paintings of the Revolutionary War--impossible, rules Leepson, since the Continental Army marched under regimental flags, not the drapery Betsy Ross stitched together under George Washington's approving eye, a legend almost certainly made from whole cloth. In truth, explains the author, interest in the flag's origins dates from the Civil War and its aftermath, when nationalistic feeling about the flag first welled up, and ever since, in times of crisis, has been a distinctive American trait. Previously, the Stars and Stripes simply identified government installations. Its evolution into a symbol of popular affection, though one invested with divergent emotions, as laws and lawsuits concerning its proper display evince, animate Leepson's evenhanded, myth-sifting account. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Leepson notes that "no country in the world can match the intensity of the American citizenry's attachment to the... Stars and Stripes." He goes on to chart the evolution of the flag and Americans' relationship with it in its detail-packed history. Despite the famous image in George Washington Crossing the Delaware, Leepson (Saving Monticello) says, the general's boat did not display the Stars and Stripes; the Continental Congress hadn't yet determined what the American flag would be. And "flagmania," as a 19th-century newspaper termed it, began only with the start of the Civil War. Embraced by the Ku Klux Klan, burned by Vietnam War protestors, the Stars and Stripes was again embraced in the wake of 9/11 as a ubiquitous symbol of American solidarity. Such was the revived flagmania, Leepson relates, that the flag was used to sell everything from contact lenses to disposable diapers. From reverence to kitsch, Americans' attitudes to their flag and its mythology have changed over the years, and Leepson does a creditable job of recounting those changes just in time for July 4.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Chronicling the two-centuries-plus history of the U.S. flag, Leepson considers the abundant stories that purport to be the truth about Old Glory. That moniker, like Francis Scott Key's naming the flag the "star-spangled banner," arose from reliable historical sources. But other commonly accepted views of the flag are more dubious, such as its depiction in historical paintings of the Revolutionary War--impossible, rules Leepson, since the Continental Army marched under regimental flags, not the drapery Betsy Ross stitched together under George Washington's approving eye, a legend almost certainly made from whole cloth. In truth, explains the author, interest in the flag's origins dates from the Civil War and its aftermath, when nationalistic feeling about the flag first welled up, and ever since, in times of crisis, has been a distinctive American trait. Previously, the Stars and Stripes simply identified government installations. Its evolution into a symbol of popular affection, though one invested with divergent emotions, as laws and lawsuits concerning its proper display evince, animate Leepson's evenhanded, myth-sifting account. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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