Politics and Beauty in America ― The Liberal Aesthetics of P.t. Barnum, John Muir, and Harley Earl

This book holds classical liberalism responsible for an American concept of beauty that centers upon women, wilderness, and machines. For each of the three beauty components, a cultural entrepreneur supremely sensitive to liberalism’s survival agenda is introduced. P.T. Barnum’s exhibition of Jenny Lind is a masterful combination of female elegance and female potency in the subsistence realm. John Muir’s Yosemite Valley is surely exquisite, but only after a rigorous liberal education prepares for its experience. And Harley Earl’s 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air is a dreamy expressionist sculpture, but with a practical 265 cubic inch V-8 underneath. Not that American beauty has been uniformly pragmatic. The 1950s are reconsidered for having temporarily facilitated a relaxation of the liberal survival priorities, and the creations of painter Jackson Pollock and jazz virtuoso Ornette Coleman are evaluated for their resistance to the pressures of pragmatism. The author concludes with a provocative speculation regarding a future liberal habitat where Emerson’s admonition to attach stars to wagons is rescinded.

Timothy J. Lukes is Professor of Political Science at Santa Clara University, USA. His research interests include the Italian Renaissance, American political culture, and contemporary political thought. His books have won awards from the Women’s Caucus of the American Political Science Association and the Asian American Studies Association, and his article on Progressives and Asian communities in California received the Carl I. Wheat Memorial Award. He has published essays in numerous academic journals, including The American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics,PS: Political Science and Politics, Journal of Law and Public Policy,Journal of Sport and Social Issues, and The Sixteenth Century Journal. He is recipient of the Northern California Phi Beta Kappa Outstanding Teaching Award.