This full of life reader lines the quest for American culture and nationwide id via folklore and folklife from the nineteenth century to the current. via a fascinating set of essays, folks kingdom exhibits how American thinkers and leaders have used folklore to specific the that means in their kingdom. Simon Bronner has rigorously chosen statements by means of public intellectuals and well known writers in addition to by means of students, all selected for his or her clarity and value as provocative texts in the course of their time. the typical thread operating all through is the price of folklore in expressing or denying an American nationwide culture. this article increases well timed concerns in regards to the personality of yankee tradition and the course of yank society. The essays express the improvement of perspectives of yank nationalism, multiculturalism, and commercialism. Provocative subject matters comprise debates over the connection among pop culture and folks tradition, the distinctiveness of an American literature and humanities in line with folks resources, the fabrication of folks heroes comparable to Pecos invoice and Paul Bunyan as propaganda for patriotism and nationalism, the romanticizations of vernacular tradition via popularizers akin to Walt Disney and Ben Botkin, using folklore for ethnocentric reasons, and the political deployment of folklore by way of conservatives as logos of 'traditional values' and civil virtues and through liberals as trademarks of multiculturalism and tolerance of other life. The publication additionally strains the talk over who conveyed the parable of 'America.' used to be it the nation's poets and artists, its lecturers, its politicians and leaders, its groups and native academic associations, its subject matter parks and gala's, its motion picture moguls and entertainers? people kingdom indicates how the method of defining the yank mystique via folklore used to be on the center of debates between writers and thinkers in regards to the price of Davey Crockett, John Henry, quilts, cowboys, and immigrants as symbols of America.