America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories

by Bruce David Forbes

Overview

America’s Favorite Holidays explores how five of America’s culturally important holidays—Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving—came to be what they are today, seasonal and religious celebrations heavily influenced by modern popular culture. Deftly distilling information from a wide range of sources, Bruce David Forbes reveals often-surprising answers to questions about each holiday’s traditions. Was Christmas always as commercialized as it is today? Is Thanksgiving a religious or secular holiday? When did we begin trick-or-treating on Halloween? Appealing and insightful, America’s Favorite Holidays satisfies our curiosity about the origins of our holidays and the fascinating ways in which religion and culture mix.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520284722
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	10/27/2015
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Bruce David Forbes is Professor of Religious Studies at Morningside College, author of Christmas: A Candid History, and coeditor of Religion and Popular Culture in America.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Christmas
2. Valentine’s Day
3. Easter
4. Halloween
5. Thanksgiving

Afterword
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a delightful book, full of history presented with a gracious and light touch—in other words, a perfect holiday present. . . . Highly recommended."

CHOICE connect

"America’s Favorite Holidays is an immensely readable book that provides a very engaging history of five widely-celebrated holidays in the United States."

Reading Religion - Samira K. Mehta

"This slender book, which is adorned with whimsical drawings of Cupid and Santa Claus, is deceptively thought-provoking. Bruce David Forbes, a professor of religious studies, writes in a style that is more confessional than that of the typical academic. . . . He excels in providing entertaining tidbits. . . . The book is presented as light and entertaining, and Forbes readily delivers on this promise."

TLS - Jennifer Jensen Wallach

"After you read all five chapters of 'America’s Favorite Holidays' you will not only be more reflective, you will be poised to win the trivia contest at all of your holiday parties this year and beyond."

Providence Journal - Hilary Levey Friedman

01/01/2016
This new book by Forbes (religious studies, Morningside Coll.; Christmas: A Candid History) discusses the particulars of our now widely accepted cultural practices surrounding Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. The nature of folk and cultural traditions is such that we often assume that present-day customs have always been the norm. Forbes presents a genial and ably written corrective to that tendency, pointing out that each of these holidays typically includes three or four strands of tradition: seasonal observances, ancient symbols, religious overlays, and modern popular or commercial overlays. Some of the key lessons—holidays have never been "pure"; their observances historically are a muddle of sacred and secular interests, and that many rituals that seem ancient are either quite recent or have received renewed emphasis in the past century. VERDICT This accessible work deserves a wide readership and will be of interest to general readers, academic libraries, and religious leaders.

Library Journal

"This slender book, which is adorned with whimsical drawings of Cupid and Santa Claus, is deceptively thought-provoking. Bruce David Forbes, a professor of religious studies, writes in a style that is more confessional than that of the typical academic. . . . He excels in providing entertaining tidbits. . . . The book is presented as light and entertaining, and Forbes readily delivers on this promise."

TLS - Bruce David Forbes