American Cool, Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style

Author

Stearns; Peter N.

Year

1994

Publisher

NYU Press

Language

English

Pages

Link

Last Update

04-Feb-2026

Keywords

History

Description

Cool. The concept is distinctly American, and it permeates almost every aspect of contemporary American culture. From Kool cigarettes and the Snoopy cartoon’s Joe Cool toWest Side Story(“Keep cool, boy.”) and urban slang (“Be cool. Chill out.”), the idea of cool, in its many manifestations, has seized a central place in the American imagination.

By the 1990s, the word has come to mean many things, but it always suggests approval. A university student writes on an examination that Columbus received a hearty welcome on his return to Spain; when asked why he made such an egregious historical mistake,...