American Sophistication

The fascinating story of sophistication in the United States, from the founding to the present

Is there such a thing as “American sophistication”—or is it a contradiction in terms? Those questions have been up for grabs since America’s founding. The idea of sophistication has always left Americans uneasy. Devoted to a self-image of sincerity and plain-dealing, Americans are suspicious of sophistication’s playfulness and ease, which look like symptoms of European elitism, snobbery, and decadence. In this entertaining and enlightening account of American sophistication from the eighteenth century to today, Ross Posnock tells the story of how Americans’ anxiety about style and elegance led them to develop their own casual and cool style of sophistication.

From the start, American sophistication has been distinctive because it is mixed, improvised, and shape-shifting: guilty and smooth, game and nervous, vulgar and poised. Each chapter of this sparkling, wide-ranging narrative examines the evolution of American sophistication by exploring key figures in the story, including Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Duke Ellington, Dorothy Parker, Mary McCarthy, the Kennedys, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Eartha Kitt, Susan Sontag, Frank O’Hara, Jasper Johns, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Leonard Bernstein. The book ends by sketching the changing fortunes of American sophistication since John F. Kennedy by looking at some of his key presidential successors—Reagan, Obama, and Trump.

The first account of a compelling and timely subject, American Sophistication brings together film, fashion, literature, design, art, and musical theater to present a fresh synthesis of cultural history.