THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN ADAM.

ATTITUDE (Psychology); CONDUCT of life; UNITED States history; MORISON, Samuel Eliot, 1887-1976; GUILT (Psychology); COLLECTIVE behavior; SELF-destructive behavior; SOCIAL psychology

Focuses on the changing attitudes of Americans toward the history of the United States. Inversion of traditional myths; Shift from collective innocence to collective guilt; Historian Samuel Eliot Morison's remark on the prevailing view of Americans toward their national past; Report that Americans evidently have some special problems of a self-destructive nature in dealing with national guilt; View that neither the old myth of innocence nor the self-therapy of historic or collective guilt has proved to be of much help to Americans with their problems.