First published in 1961, The Beer Can by the Highway takes a provocative, wide-ranging look at America's ever-changing physical and intellectual landscapes, from advertising and jazz to Manhattan's skyline and the prairies of the Midwest. The Johns Hopkins edition features a foreword by Ralph Ellison, who praises the work as "one that springs from deep within that rich segment of the American grain which gave us the likes of Emerson and Whitman, Horatio Greenough and Constance Rourke-yes, and Mark Twain."
John A. Kouwenhoven (1909-1990) taught English at Barnard College for many years. His books include The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York, Made in America, and Half a Truth Is Better than None.
ForewordPrefaceChapter 1. Preliminary Glance at an American LandscapeChapter 2. The Dispraising of AmericaChapter 3. What's "American" About AmericaChapter 4. The Curriculum of DiscoveryChapter 5. Liberal Crafts and Illiberal ArtsChapter 6. Farewell, Architecture!Chapter 7. What is "American" in Architecture and Design?Chapter 8. Up Tails AllChapter 9. Soft Sell, Hard Sell, Padded SellChapter 10. The Beer Can by the HighwayAcknowledgmentsIndex
Kouwenhoven is... an acute and extraordinarily genial analyst of our mechanized folkware. -- Charles Poore New York Times