Forging the American Character: Readings in United States History to 1877, Volume 1 (4th Edition) - Softcover

Wilson, John R.M.

9780130977656: Forging the American Character: Readings in United States History to 1877, Volume 1 (4th Edition)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130977659 ISBN 13: 9780130977656

Publisher: Pearson, 2002

Broad and balanced in perspective—and reader-friendly in format and design—this collection of authoritative readings focuses on the various forces, ideologies, people, and experiences that have forged the distinctive American character. Drawn from an extensive and impressive variety of historical sources—including popular history journals, chapters from key books, and scholarly journals—coverage ranges from traditional fields such as historiography and political, cultural, diplomatic, and religious history, to the new social and women's history.

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From the Back Cover:

This collection of diverse readings focuses on some of the forces, ideologies, people, and experiences that have helped forge today's distinctive American character. Editor John R. M. Wilson presents the concept of national character as consisting of useful generalizations that elucidate the ways in which a nation or nationality is unique. National character can help explain the tendency of people living in one nation to behave and believe in certain ways that differ from people in other nations. This collection suggests that Americans have defined themselves not only by what they are, but also by what they are not. This negative component—for example, Americans are anti-communist—is an important part of the American character.

Volume I: This anthology enables readers to explore various subjects such as the surprisingly normal behavior of the Puritans, the horrors of life and death in the Civil War, and various other topics not generally developed in depth in history textbooks. The selections include both classic treatments by giants in the historical profession and new interpretations and findings by young scholars in various sub-fields of history. All explore topics that shed light on the American character.

Selections include:

Henry Wiencek, "The Spain Among Us"
Edmund S. Morgan, "Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox"
David Potter, "The Quest for the National Character"
John Murrin, "Religion and Politics in Early America"
Henry Steele Commager, "The Invention of America"
Brian W. Dippie, "The Winning of the West Reconsidered"
Allan Nevins, "The Glorious and the Terrible"

A long United States history textbook may run to 1000 pages. Although that length may seem intimidating to students, it still does not allow extended treatment of a wide variety of fascinating topics. A book of readings, however, does. The theme of this reader is the American character. I trust that the concept will illuminate American history without being overly restrictive.

A reader like this one enables students to explore subjects ranging from the influence of Indians and the Spanish on the American experience to the debate over multiculturalism at the turn of the new millennium, from the horrors of life and death in the Civil War to the myths that grew up around the Vietnam War. The nature of the selections varies. Some offer cutting-edge interpretations of the past; others introduce readers to new findings; a few synthesize the writings in a historical subfield; and several are classic statements of enduring value. The readings do not pretend to cover every possible topic; rather, they explore various areas that shed light on the American character yet suffer comparative neglect in many textbooks.

Trying to define the American character can be very frustrating. No one has been able to develop a widely accepted definition of the concept. Authors often use different meanings in the same piece of writing—for instance, referring interchangeably to the character of the individual American and to the character of the mass of Americans. National character, especially in a country as big and heterogeneous as the United States, can be useful only as a large-scale generalization to cover the most prominent characteristics of the national culture. Some scholars have criticized efforts to capture the national character, suggesting that in many cases they may merely be intellectually sophisticated forms of racial stereotyping. Yet the practice persists, perhaps because it is so convenient to group people and thus make them more manageable. Perhaps the most useful definition is that national character means generalizations about a nation or nationality developed to clarify the ways in which it is distinctive.

A national character suggests tendencies on the part of a people, not fixed positions held by everyone. It means that, all things being equal, the people of a given nation are more likely to believe or behave in a certain way than those of another nation. There is an inherent comparison implied in suggesting a national character, although studies of the American character generally tend not to explicitly explore other nationalities.

The genre began very early in the history of the United States with the publication in 1782 of J. Hector St. John de Crevecouer's Letters from an American Farmer; the immigrant asked the famous question, "What then is this American, this new man?" Crevecouer's pioneering inquiry into the American character ran up against geographical and cultural heterogeneity, which has become a vastly greater obstacle in the succeeding two centuries. The most famous inquiry came in the 1830s when Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America and provided penetrating French insight into the nature of the conforming, religious, liberty-loving joiners he observed. Over the years, historians and other social observers have sought to explain American distinctiveness through such characteristics as abundance, exposure to the frontier, pragmatism, belief in progress, and mobility. They have debated the relative influence of mother England and the wilderness'and, in so doing, have illuminated American self-understanding without providing any final answers. The quest continues, as the popularity of Habits of the Heart attests. That 1985 study by Robert Bellah and associates focuses on the strains between American individualism and the need for community and offers the most thorough recent analysis of the American character.

This collection suggests that Americans have defined themselves not only by what they are but also by what they are not, and the latter, negative definition is an important component of Americanism. By and large, Native Americans have not been allowed to share their heritage with Europeans, despite their significant contributions to the lives of colonists in the New World. For other nationalities, conformity to the English cultural model was long required for acceptance in the United States, although a more pluralistic, open society seems to be emerging as the nation has moved into a new millennium. Yet over the past half century, the increasingly diverse American population has frequently defined itself less by what it is than by what it is not—as antifascist and, especially, anticommunist.

This book should help to clarify some of the various forces, ideologies, people, and experiences that have helped forge today's distinctive American character. If, as Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living, then this excursion into the life of a people should help make it more worthwhile.

In closing, I wish to thank the Prentice Hall reviewers for their helpful comments: Louis Schmier, Valdosta State University; Charles T. Johnson, Valdosta State University; Dwight D. Watson, Southwest Texas State University; and Brooke D. Simpson, Arizona State University.

John R. M. Wilson
Costa Mesa, California

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