The Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream

Author:   Ernest G. Bormann ,  Ernest G. Bormann
Publisher:   Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN:  

9780809323692


Pages:   296
Publication Date:   31 December 2000
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
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The Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream


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Overview

"In this book, first published in 1985, Ernest G. Bormann explores mass persuasion in America from 1620 to 1860, examining closely four rhetorical communities: the revivals of 1739-1740, the hot gospel of the postrevolutionary period, the evangelical revival and reform of the 1830s, and the Free Soil and Republican parties. Each community varies greatly, but Bormann asserts that each succeeding community shares a rhetorical vision of restoring the """"American Dream"""" that is essentially a modification of the previous visions. Thus, they form a family of rhetorical visions that constitutes a rhetorical tradition of importance in nineteenth-century American popular culture."

Full Product Details

Author:   Ernest G. Bormann ,  Ernest G. Bormann
Publisher:   Southern Illinois University Press
Imprint:   Southern Illinois University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.417kg
ISBN:  

9780809323692


ISBN 10:   0809323699
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   31 December 2000
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Reviews

"""Bormann's research has been prodigious, and his descriptions are fascinating. He has located little-known resources and from them is able to provide such vivid details (of the Methodist circuit riders and the camp meetings, for example) that it is almost possible for the reader to share in the fantasy themes. The Force of Fantasy is a tour de force, a remarkable explication and application of a critical system in an important historical period. It reveals a serious humanistic critic at work explaining another way of looking at human communication, producing new insights into our past and a better understanding of how humans cope with reality."" - Quarterly Journal of Speech; ""Bormann is at his best when discussing the rhetorical themes and techniques of individual orators and when sketching the communication styles of Puritan and revivalist preachers. There is, for example, no better statement about the artistry of Jonathan Edwards's classic sermons than Bormann's judgment that they 'deserve to be studied and appreciated as rhetorical artifacts just as Hamlet might be studied as the highest expression of Elizabethan drama.' Nor is there a superior summary of the stylistic changes in Abraham Lincoln's speeches from the 1830s to the 1850s. As the magnum opus of fantasy theme analysis, Bormann's study deserves wide reading and close scruting."" - Rhetoric Society Quarterly"""


Bormann's research has been prodigious, and his descriptions are fascinating. He has located little-known resources and from them is able to provide such vivid details (of the Methodist circuit riders and the camp meetings, for example) that it is almost possible for the reader to share in the fantasy themes. The Force of Fantasy is a tour de force, a remarkable explication and application of a critical system in an important historical period. It reveals a serious humanistic critic at work explaining another way of looking at human communication, producing new insights into our past and a better understanding of how humans cope with reality. - Quarterly Journal of Speech; Bormann is at his best when discussing the rhetorical themes and techniques of individual orators and when sketching the communication styles of Puritan and revivalist preachers. There is, for example, no better statement about the artistry of Jonathan Edwards's classic sermons than Bormann's judgment that they 'deserve to be studied and appreciated as rhetorical artifacts just as Hamlet might be studied as the highest expression of Elizabethan drama.' Nor is there a superior summary of the stylistic changes in Abraham Lincoln's speeches from the 1830s to the 1850s. As the magnum opus of fantasy theme analysis, Bormann's study deserves wide reading and close scruting. - Rhetoric Society Quarterly


Author Information

Ernest G. Bormann is a professor emeritus in the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. His many books include Effective Small Group Communication, The Process of Presentational Speaking, Communication Theory, and Forerunners of Black Power: The Rhetoric of Abolition.

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