Description

Book Synopsis
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • Drawing on a wealth of research, this fascinating book (The New York Times Book Review) charts the invention of our current Yuletide traditions, from St. Nicholas to the Christmas tree and, perhaps most radically, the practice of giving gifts to children. 

Anyone who laments the excesses of Christmas might consider the Puritans of colonial Massachusetts: they simply outlawed the holiday. The Puritans had their reasons, since Christmas was once an occasion for drunkenness and riot, when poor wassailers  extorted food and drink from the well-to-do. In this intriguing and innovative work of social history, Stephen Nissenbaum rediscovers Christmas's carnival origins and shows how it was transformed, during the nineteenth century, into a festival of domesticity and consumerism. 
   
Bursting with detail, filled with subversive readings of such seasonal classics as A Visit from St. Nicholas

The Battle for Christmas Vintage A Social and

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    A Paperback by Stephen Nissenbaum

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      Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
      Publication Date: 10/28/1997 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780679740384, 978-0679740384
      ISBN10: 0679740384
      Also in:
      Social and cultural anthropology Sociology

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • Drawing on a wealth of research, this fascinating book (The New York Times Book Review) charts the invention of our current Yuletide traditions, from St. Nicholas to the Christmas tree and, perhaps most radically, the practice of giving gifts to children. 

      Anyone who laments the excesses of Christmas might consider the Puritans of colonial Massachusetts: they simply outlawed the holiday. The Puritans had their reasons, since Christmas was once an occasion for drunkenness and riot, when poor wassailers  extorted food and drink from the well-to-do. In this intriguing and innovative work of social history, Stephen Nissenbaum rediscovers Christmas's carnival origins and shows how it was transformed, during the nineteenth century, into a festival of domesticity and consumerism. 
         
      Bursting with detail, filled with subversive readings of such seasonal classics as A Visit from St. Nicholas

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