Why is it that Thanksgiving is celebrated almost exclusively in the United States and Canada. How has it been celebrated, and how is it celebrated now?
Professor Hugo Freund teaches Social and Behavioural Sciences at Union College, in Barbourville Kentucky and visits with us about the roots of Thanksgiving beginning in the 1600’s in what is now the north-eastern United States through to its role as a gathering of friends and family without sectarian religious direction.
This program was recorded in 2002 at the Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans, Louisiana the lobby of rather noisy hotel. It was first broadcast in 2009 after most of the hotel’s background rumble could be electronically hushed. We began our conversation by discussing how the contemporary concept of Thanksgiving is acknowledged.
The book Hugo Freund recommends is “The Popes Against The Jews: The Vatican’s Role In The Rise Of Modern Anti-Semitism,” by David I.Kertzer.
