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
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.
moving america progress
In fast-moving, progress-conscious America, the consumer expects to be dizzied by progress. If he could completely understand advertising jargon he would be badly disappointed. The half-intelligibility which we expect, or even hope, to find in the latest product language personally reassures each of us that progress is being made: that the pace exceeds our ability to follow.
government america common-sense
In America, communities existed before governments. There were many groups of people with a common sense of purpose and a feeling of duty to one another before there were political institutions.
america selfishness spirit
Jeffersonian isolationism expressed an essentially cosmopolitan spirit. The Jeffersonian was determined - even at the expense of separating himself from the rest of the globe, and even though he be charged with provincial selfishness - to preserve America as an uncontaminated laboratory.
land america perfection
Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody's image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.
love conceited america
As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.
knowledge commodity used
Knowledge is not simply another commodity. On the contrary. Knowledge is never used up. It increases by diffusion and grows by dispersion.
god responsibility interesting
We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.
discovery greatest ignorance illusion obstacle
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge.
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.
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!'
interesting ruts needs
An enamored amateur need not be a genius to stay out of the ruts he has never been trained in.
reading our-world world
By reading we discover our world, our history, and ourselves.
ignorance discovery obstacles
Throught human history, illusions of knowledge, not ignorance, have proven to be the principal obstacles to discovery