In The Familiar Made Strange, twelve distinguished historians offer original and playful readings of American icons and artifacts that cut across rather than stop at the nation's borders to model new interpretive approaches to studying United States history. These leading practitioners of the "transnational turn" pause to consider such famous icons as John Singleton Copley's painting Watson and the Shark, Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph V-J Day, 1945, Times Square, and Alfred Kinsey's reports on sexual behavior, as well as more surprising but revealing artifacts like Josephine Baker's banana skirt and William Howard Taft's underpants. Together, they present a road map to the varying scales, angles and methods of transnational analysis that shed light on American politics, empire, gender, and the operation of power in everyday life.
"Warmly recommended to both skeptics and avid practitioners of transnational American Studies who will inevitably catch themselves pondering which other American icons and artifacts might lend themselves for a rereading in a transnational framework."
Amerikastudien
"Reading The Familiar Made Strange feels like taking a walk through a well-signposted museum with halls that twist through different eras, types of archives and source material, and analytic approaches.... Students and scholars alike will be inspired by its lively prose, experimental tone, and frequent reminder that there remain 'different paths to blaze and more icons to reimagine from other angl
