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The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum

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The Battle for Christmas

A Social and Cultural History of Our Most Cherished Holiday

By Stephen Nissenbaum

By Stephen Nissenbaum

By Stephen Nissenbaum

By Stephen Nissenbaum

Paperback $17.95

Oct 28, 1997 | 400 Pages

Ebook $12.99

Dec 01, 2010 | 400 Pages

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    The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum
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    Oct 28, 1997 | 400 Pages
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    • Paperback $17.95

      Oct 28, 1997 | 400 Pages

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    • Ebook $12.99

      Dec 01, 2010 | 400 Pages

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    About The Battle for Christmas

    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. 
       
    Drawing on a wealth of period documents and illustrations, Nissenbaum 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. Bursting with detail, filled with subversive readings of such seasonal classics as “A Visit from St. Nicholas” and A Christmas Carol, The Battle for Christmas captures the glorious strangeness of the past even as it helps us better understand our present.  

    About The Battle for Christmas

    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. 
       
    Drawing on a wealth of period documents and illustrations, Nissenbaum 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. Bursting with detail, filled with subversive readings of such seasonal classics as “A Visit from St. Nicholas” and A Christmas Carol, The Battle for Christmas captures the glorious strangeness of the past even as it helps us better understand our present.  

    Also by Stephen Nissenbaum

    Behind the Christmas Tree
    See all books by Stephen Nissenbaum

    Also by Stephen Nissenbaum

    Behind the Christmas Tree
    See all books by Stephen Nissenbaum

    About Stephen Nissenbaum

    Stephen Nissenbaum received his A.B. from Harvard College in 1961, his M.A. from Columbia University in 1963, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1968. He has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst since 1968, and is… More about Stephen Nissenbaum

    About Stephen Nissenbaum

    Stephen Nissenbaum received his A.B. from Harvard College in 1961, his M.A. from Columbia University in 1963, and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1968. He has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst since 1968, and is… More about Stephen Nissenbaum

    Product Details

    Category: U.S. History | Religion

    Paperback | $17.95
    Published by Vintage
    Oct 28, 1997 | 400 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780679740384

    Category: U.S. History | Religion

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by Vintage
    Dec 01, 2010 | 400 Pages | ISBN 9780307760227

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    Praise

    “Fascinating.”    

    –The New York Times Book Review
        

    “Christmas . . . too often fails to wholly satisfy the spirit or the senses. How and why the yuletide came to this is the subject of historian Stephen Nissenbaum’s fascinating new study. “    

    –Newsweek

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