With engaging writing and fresh research, everything comes together in a thoroughly enjoyable package. Readers will find humor, pathos, and surprises. Lots to consider, especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner.
Thanksgiving can often get lost in the commercialization of the holiday season, but this history of its origins puts the holiday in a fresh perspective. Readers seeking an inspiring story of persistence and achievement will appreciate.
Suggesting that thankfulness is a state of mind as nourishing as any feast, sh[Kieman]declares grace isn’t something we say but bestow: it’s an 'active choice.' In fact, many psychiatrists and neuroscientists, she asserts, believe 'gratitude practice' good for body and soul. Yet though she summarizes some of the ancient religious and secular customs associated with various thanksgiving observations, she’s writing mostly of the peculiarly American feast, established nationally during the upheaval of the Civil War and proclaimed only weeks before Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg.
Kiernan examines the 'cultural, ancient, religious, and secular customs' behind Thanksgiving, and the campaign to make it a national holiday, in this wide-ranging account ... Packed with vivid character sketches, intriguing historical tidbits, and lucid meditations on the psychology of giving thanks, this unique chronicle casts the holiday in a new light.
