ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Europe's reliance on cultural anniversaries as a device for propagating national identity, and then explores reasons why the United States construes anniversaries differently. The cult of anniversaries helps cultural programmers to achieve consensus, and it helps everyone to get situated within the Great Calendar of history. Equally important, the cult of anniversaries helps governments and businesses to cultivate national identity. The French Revolution reinforced national identity not least by introducing a civil religion to justify the new regime. The most remarkable recent example of a world's fair of interpretations has been the bicentennial of the French Revolution. The bicentennial of the French Revolution, commemorated during 1989 in a crossfire between Mitterand's Socialists and Chirac's Conservatives, was planned in homage to France's civil religion. Publicists articulate national identity by connecting a nation's history with present-day endeavors.
