All Around the Year: Holidays and Celebrations in American Life

By Jack Santino

Book Overview

Whether they're decorating Easter trees or celebrating Wagner's birthday by playing recordings of his Ring cycle operas and incinerating a model of Valhalla on an outdoor barbecue to the closing strains of "Gotterd merung," Americans know both how to create and how to celebrate holidays.

Jack Santino's guide to such frivolity is a wonderfully readable exploration of holidays, periods of festivity, and life-cycle rituals and celebrations. Santino draws on history, anthropology, popular culture, and folklore to show the intricate relationships between holidays and the roles that celebrations and rituals play in people's lives.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252065166
• ISBN13: 9780252065163
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"