Reviews for American dreams

The average rating for American dreams based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-11-11 00:00:00 Nadine Loest Virtually every issue we deal with as a country is, at its base, influenced by our view of national identity, and the nature of citizenship. Many authors have looked at this topic from a number of different perspectives. Gary Gilroy in Black Atlantic gave us a transnational view of black identity which transcended the borders of the nation-state. Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism talks about imagined communities bound together by limited borders and a belief in shared experience. Prasenjit Duara in Historicizing National Identity challenges us to look at nationalism using alternate views of time and space. Lizbeth Cohen in A Consumers’ Republic looks at the evolution of American national identity with consumerism as the central focus. Aiwha Ong in Flexible Citizenship takes a critical look at the view Americans have of what constitutes good citizenship and how that manifests itself in the way instruments of governmentality interacts with new immigrants, and Gary Gerstle, in the book I will be reviewing here, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century, views civic and racial nationalism as the defining paradigm with which to look at the evolution of American citizenship. Policies aimed at Immigration and social policy, drug and law enforcement, affirmative action, welfare policy, foreign policy and many other issues all can be traced to the ways we view citizenship and the struggle to maintain a uniquely American identity. Gary Gerstle has given us a uniquely valuable tool for looking at American nationalism and the meaning of citizenship, encompassing many of the theories proposed by the above authors, but looking at it through the dual lens of racial and civic nationalism. Gerstle structures his book using well known historical figures to illustrate his point, particularly in the person former president Theodore Roosevelt. In Gerstle’s narrative it is from this point that subsequent events can be referenced. For Gerstle civic nationalism is ably represented by the views of historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. who, endorsing Israel Zangwill’s view of America as “God’s Crucible, where all races of Europe are melting and reforming!” (Gerstle, 3), relocated this transformative power not in God, “but in the nations core political ideals, in the American belief in the fundamental equality of all human beings, in every individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and a democratic government that derives its legitimacy from the people’s consent.” (Gerstle, 4) Since these principles were enshrined in the founding documents Gerstle notes that Schlesinger and others have “argued that they have marked something distinctive about the American people and their polity.” (Gerstle, 4) Mitigating the benefits of civic nationalism in Gerstle’s view is a racial nationalism that “conceives of America in ethno-racial terms, as people held together, as people held together by common blood and skin color and by an inherited fitness for self-government.” (Gerstle, 4) Gerstle notes that like civic nationalism, racial nationalism was also inscribed in our founding documents, particularly in the Constitution, which acknowledged the enslavement of Africans through its extension of the transatlantic slave trade, and definition of slaves as less than fully human via the 3/5 clause. The mixture of these two types of nationalism has driven American governmental policy from 1890 through to the present. By looking at the inherent tensions between these two views in the lives of significant American leaders, from Theodore Roosevelt through to Bill Clinton, Gerstle is able to personalize and focus his analysis of how the intermixture of the two resulted in a surprisingly strong and uniquely American national identity. This identity, in his view, lasted until the 1960s when the civil rights movement and Vietnam War began the disintegration of this “imagined community,” into more granular identities of ethnicity, gender and class. Overlapping this is the effect of immigration policy and war on this mix mixture of racial and civic nationalism. Gerstle identifies Theodore Roosevelt as the embodiment of this tension between civic and racial nationalism, the mixture of which allowed him to pursue progressive social and economic policies that benefited a significant portion of the population. Throughout the book Gerstle uses TR as the point of reference in his analysis of later developments. This is an effective device that gives the reader an easily understandable base to return to in order to put later events into context. At times he is a little over enthusiastic, as when he offers an opinion as to what Roosevelt would have thought of later developments. I’m not a fan of this kind of hypothetical speculation. While understand the purpose is to personalize the comparison in order to make it more easily accessible to the reader, I think a think a simple comparison to Roosevelt’s views and actions would have been more effective. Theodore Roosevelt’s views as to what would make the American archetype had two components. First was his idealization of the rugged individualist; he idolized the Indian fighter, the frontiersman, and the cowboy. “The harsh wilderness,” he believed, “stripped people of their Old World ranks and privileges.” (Gerstle, 24) The harsh environment of the frontier produced conditions of rough equality and mutual dependence, and from this “a democratic ethos emerged.” (Gerstle, 24) Echoing Aiwha Ong’s views on the American view of an ideal citizen, Roosevelt believed that “self-reliance was perhaps the most important ingredient of success.” (Gerstle, 24) The second component of Roosevelt’s idealized American archetype involved his view on racial hybridity. Theodore Roosevelt believed a controlled mixing of races would produce this ideal. “For Roosevelt the explanation for the rise of democracy…rested ultimately on the racial superiority of the English-speaking peoples.” (Gerstle, 24) He excluded non-Europeans from this mixture, believing that certain racial groups – eastern and southern European, Asian, and African – did not have the ability to function in a democratic society. Later on however, he began to soften his objection to the inclusion of eastern and southern Europeans, deciding they were a worthy addition to the mixture Roosevelt also came to respect the Japanese people and believed they too could be included. In addition to his views on racial mixing and the importance of rugged individualism, Roosevelt was passionately devoted to civic nationalism. Quoting Michael Ignatieff, Gerstle describes Roosevelt as “someone who imagined the nation as a community of equal, rights-bearing citizens united in patriotic attachment to a shared set of political practices and values.” (Gerstle, 45) This at times produced contradictions between his actions and statements. Most notable was the way he treated the reputation of black cavalryman who had fought in the Spanish-American War. Immediately after the war he was effusive in his praise for their valor, but as time went by he began to denigrate and downplay their contribution. Thus, for all practical purposes “Roosevelt’s national community was open to anyone would could claim European origins or ancestry.” (Gerstle, 45) It certainly excluded African-Americans. In this and other examples, Roosevelt’s notions of the superiority of European racial stock conflicted with his views on civic nationalism. It was this type of conflict that Gerstle argues, has characterized American national identity since then. Gerstle’s admiration for Theodore Roosevelt is clear. He concludes his analysis by noting that Roosevelt’s “civic nationalism was capacious and democratic.” (Gerstle, 79) He notes that Roosevelt wanted to open the country to all European immigrants, “even those who had come from the ‘inferior’ peoples of southern and eastern Europe.” (Gerstle, 79) He also notes that Roosevelt’s views on the role of government in the economy changed; abandoning the notion that individuals could, through simple hard work and dedication raise themselves out of poverty, he embraced the need for an activist government that protected the rights of disadvantaged peoples. The only price for this was that immigrants had to “jettison their Old World cultures and assimilate fully into American life.” (Gerstle, 79) Though these views would not carry him to the White House in 1912, Gerstle notes, his “program became the template upon which the twentieth-century liberalism took shape.” (Gerstle, 79) Chapters four through six in many ways are the most interesting in this book. In them, Gerstle explores how the tensions between racial and civic nationalism manifest themselves in governmental policy. In particular, Gerstle focuses on immigration policy and war as the areas where this tension is seen most clearly. In this view war offers a way for the country to test itself, and to fight for its most important values. It also, as Theodore Roosevelt believed, reinvigorated the racial mixing he believed was necessary to keeping the nation vital. Immigration policy on the other hand, made visible who should and should not be eligible for citizenship. Thus, while Woodrow Wilson’s “peace without victory” policy flowed from civic nationalism, the military was still segregated. After the “war to end all wars,” America went through a period of severe immigration restriction, effectively barring southern and eastern Europeans and Asians, based on the belief that people from those regions were not fit to become American citizens. In the case of the Japanese the fear was the opposite, with many believing they were equal and possibly superior to Americans of strictly European descent. Since they could “be neither assimilated nor made subservient, they had to be excluded altogether from America.” (Gerstle, 112) Gerstle argues these restrictive immigration policies had the effect of stabilizing racial tensions in the country to the point that when Franklin Roosevelt assumed office there was very little attention paid to this aspect of nationalism. It was assumed most immigrants had achieved the desired “American-ness.” It also goes without saying, while racial tensions subsided as a public issue, it did not mean that racism and inequality were no longer a problem. In many ways this calm interim made later conflict more inevitable, and more violent. More important however, was FDR’s reaction to the economic downturn of the Great Depression. Instead of merely restoring the morale of the nation after assuming office, he undertook an “experiment in state building without precedent.” (Gerstle, 128) Gerstle speculates that FDR was able to enact much of what Theodore Roosevelt had attempted because of the lessening of the tensions between civic and racial nationalistic impulses. Most important was the massive government intervention in the economy, which TR believed was necessary to secure the “social rights” of all citizens. Gerstle argues that FDR was successful in this. FDR also shared TR’s views on racial hybridity, though without the animus for supposedly inferior racial groups. And, like TR, Franklin Roosevelt was a “fervent nationalist who conceived of the nation as an entity nobler than any particular class, region, or interest.” (Gerstle, 132) With American entry into World War II civic nationalism reached an acme that has not been repeated since, even during the cold war. In a reaction to racial purity as practiced by the Nazi’s, America reveled in their diversity. But, as with the aftermath of World War I, racial nationalism rose from its pre-war slumber. Restrictions were again placed on immigration allegedly due to the number of refugees entering America, and with the segregation again of African American troops, the conflict between racial and civic nationalism was again on display. Gerstle sees the cold war years that followed World War II as the last period in which the tension between racial and civic nationalism as maintaining the American “imagined community.” The threat of communism and fear of home-grown radicals served as the pretext for an increase of civic nationalism, even though in this case it served to deny some civil liberties. The U.S. again severely restricted immigration as Italian and Jewish immigrants were particularly discriminated against. Finally he documents the deconstruction of “Rooseveltian Nationalism” with the start of the civil rights movement, and with America’s humiliation in Vietnam. Gerstle argues that racial groups who had once strived to achieve “whiteness,” were now abandoning an American nationalism in favor of ethnic or class identification. “The nationalist crisis occurred primarily in the realm of ideology, culture, and institutions. Many people who resided in America no longer imagined that they belonged to the same national community of that they shared a common set of ideals. The bonds of nationhood had weakened, and the Rooseveltian program of nation building that had created those bonds in the first place had been repudiated. A nationalist era that had begun in the early decades of the twentieth century had come to a stunning end.” (Gerstle, 345) He ends with speculation on how civic nationalism could be revived without the baggage that racial nationalism brought with it. In this he is skeptical, believing America will either opt for the “resurgence of a strong, solidaristic, and exclusionary national identity of the sort that has existed in the past; or, in the interests of tolerance and diversity, we will continue to opt for a weaker identity.” (Gerstle, 373) In the end, Gerstle is fearful we will never recapture our civic nationalism without the baggage of racial nationalism, or we will become so tolerant and diverse that our national unity will be permanently weakened. In this I disagree. In my opinion it is not racial nationalism we need fear, but rather a religious one. In my experience racial identity, spawned by discrimination and racism, does not entirely divorce those adopting it from a desire for civic nationalism. The tolerance Gerstle fears, will not permanently result in a country of separate tribal identities, rather, it will reduce the need for division based on them. Tolerance and diversity implies an acceptance of differences that is the opposite of racism. Since it is that racism that spawned this racial tribalism in the first place, as the racism ebbs, so will the perceived need to identify more strongly by race than by nationality. My real fear is we are moving toward a religious nationalism, one that induces people to identify more strongly with a religious identification than a national one. Can anyone see what has been going on in Kentucky the last several weeks and not wonder if this is the case? Increasingly, we see public policy, and the worth of public officials, being judged based upon their adherence to a religious credo. Over the last twenty years we have seen attempts to modify the constitution to discriminate against gays, to codify a religious view of how women control their bodies, to guarantee prayer in the schools, to codify expressions of religious belief in our national oaths, and to submit scientific curriculum to religious interpretations. All of this testifies to this fear. Our political campaigns have become dominated by this as well. As a presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was pressured to reassure the American public that his religious beliefs would not influence public policy. Forty-four years later, in 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was pressured to reassure the American public that his religious beliefs would influence public policy, particularly in relation to reproductive rights. Things have only accelerated since then with candidates increasingly asserting religious law comes before civil law. While I disagree with his fear of racial identity, in terms of format and style I have rarely had such a pleasant read. Gerstle’s narrative is lively and flows easily from topic to topic. His use of well-known historical figures (TR, FDR, Wilson etc.) as touchpoints is very effective. He made very good use of his sources, though at times neglected to cite statements made that clearly required it. Also, as I mentioned earlier, projecting what dead people would think about specific modern events was unnecessary.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-07-10 00:00:00 tyrone power An interesting, but ultimately disappointing history of the myth of the melting pot in America. One learns that the crucible of the title had room for only some Americans, mainly whites of a certain kind and that people of color or other ethnic origin had a wholly different experience in 20thC America. The history from the 60's to the present is glossed quickly and to me was wrong in many instances.