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  • What is Americanism?
  • Thomas Bender (bio)
Michael Kazin and Joseph A. McCartin, eds. Americanism: New Perspectives on the History of an Ideal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. 279 pp. Notes and index. $29.95.

"Americanism," Michael Kazin and Joseph A. McCartin observe, has in recent years become the "exclusive property of the cultural and political right" in the United States (p. 6). That is not, of course, wholly true. Richard Rorty, for example, insisted in Achieving Our Country that the left should not abandon the flag, leaving it for the right to exploit.1 And Jonathan Hansen, one of the contributors to this volume, has in his book, The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890–1920, used a historical case to suggest continuing progressive possibilities of a version of Americanism. Still, today the left in general is very hesitant to follow that path.

This hesitancy may derive in part from the left's embrace of a particular notion of the intellectual in public life. The historical formation of the modern intellectual includes, in some cases, the stance of alienation and, more important and in all cases, the value of independence.2 In 1898, when Emile Zola acknowledged the epithet "intellectual," he based his claim to moral authority on the basis of his independence from national institutions. Twenty years later Charles Beard similarly asserted the importance of independence in announcing his dramatic resignation from Columbia University. But there are more recent reasons for the unease on the left about embracing the flag. The "hard" multiculturalists in the 1980s meant to challenge the all-embracing claims of the nation and the implicit Tocquevillian "composite" or homogeneous American character it implied. Though multiculturalism has since become a form of Americanism, its more radical early history may have prompted the right's recent reassertion of its exclusive claim to Americanism, thus limiting access by the left. And, of course, the resurgence of aggressive nationalism propelling American militarism repels many on the left who might otherwise have embraced the flag as a resource for progressive politics, as did Martin Luther King no less than Abraham Lincoln.

Americanism is itself a rather difficult concept. It has at least two meanings: it can refer to ideals and ideologies or to a way of life (one often partially at [End Page 1] odds with the professed ideals). Either way it carries an emotional charge. No one has explained precisely the way emotion enters and empowers nationalism, but it is one of the ways nations differ from earlier empires, and it accounts for their capacity, unprecedented in history, to mobilize a people. In its progressive version, Americanism seeks to mobilize a people to do better by demanding that they live up to their ideals or enable a larger portion of the population to participate more fully in the American way of life. Of course, as we have seen in the past as well as in our present moment, an exclusionary Americanism in the form of a virulent patriotism can sustain profoundly damaging popular attitudes and policies. The narratives we write tend to applaud, whether implicitly or explicitly, the episodes of Americanism that expand the possibilities of inclusion and bemoan those that are narrow and exclusionary.

Kazin and McCartin have taken on the task of clarifying the meaning and implications of this difficult yet protean word. They have brought together an outstanding and diverse group of writers, mostly but not exclusively historians, to address the claims of Americanism. The book is divided into two parts. The larger section, with seven chapters, is titled "Whose America?" The second, with five chapters is organized under the rubric "Americanism in the World." The book is well edited. It seems that the editors imposed firm limits on length and encouraged an essayistic style rather than a monographic one, doubtless hoping that it might contribute to a more public dialogue about a very important issue.

The collection opens with a thoughtful though necessarily inconclusive essay by Kazin and McCartin. In laying out the field of operations, they acknowledge and explore Americanism's complexity, revealing a mixed bundle, including mutually incompatible values and concerns. Indeed, they are genuinely exploring, inquiring, but...

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