Our Intellectual Cheetos

In the introductory material, Clapp has noted many of the American characteristics that are in tension. In Chapter 2, he starts to get into the particulars, in this case the tension between lonesomeness and community. If there is anything that country singers are good at, it is “high lonesome.” And if there is anything else …

Hardscrabble Celts

The first full chapter of Clapp’s book is entitled “America’s Southern Accent” and shows, quite effectively, that when we talk about American culture generally we are largely talking about Southern culture — “but now southern identity, like the Mississippi in flood, has surged well beyond the banks of the South as a region. In so …