The Shaping of the American Tradition by Louis M. Hacker (review)

880 BOOK REVIEWS to certain tenets fundamental in Hegelianism and, at the same time, to eliminate the self-contradictoriness of these theses. Yet, even though there are many reasons for not agreeing with the author on many points, even for disapproving his basic notion of a changeable " quantity of being,'" it must be admitted that in studying his work the reader makes the acquaintance of an original and powerful mind, with ideas well worth attention and consideration. Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C. RuDOLF ALLERs The Shaping of the American Tradition. By Lours M. HACKER. New York: Columbia University Press, 1947. Pp. 1271. $6.50. Earlier in the present century, before the devastation of two wars had demonstrated the flimsiness of the widely-expressed hopes for international amity, tlle United States had begun to examine the contributions its citizens had made in various genres. Where was the great American novel? the typically American drama? the peculiarly American poetry? the specifically American philosophy? Each of these questions offered fascinating prospects for investigation, yet each presented a stubbornly insoluble question early in the investigating process. Could one speak of a typically American production in any line, in the absence of any well-defined American tradition? It had for so long been generally held that the United States was too new a country to have solidly established patterns of thought and action, that to contend for the existence of an American tradition would have been simply to. invite ridicule. Since that period, however, there have been a widespread re-examination of the position of this country, a critical appraisal of its history, a series of attempts to organize its regional and cultural aspects into understandable fields for study, and a quickening of interest in the fundamentals of what we are pleased to call the American way of life. Out of such attitudes, on the basis of preliminary studies made by other scholars, Professor Louis M. Hacker has written, compiled, and edited-all three activities were involved in his task-a volume titled The Shaping of the American Tradition. It is not his contention that this tradition, if it really exists, is now complete, but rather that it is in the proces; of becoming an integral part of American life. Inasmuch' as this is his thesis, it seems proper to ask what we should expect to find in such a volume. This is unquestionably the day of the anthology, and the convention has grown up that the anthologist's tastes may not be questioned. His productions are to be judged on the merits BOOK REVIEWS 381 and the arrangement of the contents; one may deplore the inclusion of this work, lament the exclusion of that, but one must always qualify such expressions with the observation that the work under consideration is, after all, the anthologist's. The weaknesses of such an attitude in a reviewer are self-evident, but the convention has been so long accepted that it is a relief to observe that Professor Hacker is not just an anthologist, but a text writer as well. He has courageously exposed himself to criticism by organizing his selections to illustrate his text, and it is therefore quite in order to examine the thesis upon which the text is based. Among the constitutive elements of the American tradition, then, one would ex:pect to find an emphasis upon freedom, upon the written guarantees of freedom, upon individual enterprise and its concomitant assurance of rewards to the specially fortunate, upon external activity rather than upon introspection, and upon democracy as that term is used here. If all of these concepts were examined and elaborated in the Shaping of the American Tradition, there would certainly be no cause for complaint on the score of inclusion or exclusion. This is not to say, however, that neglect to consider any one, or several, of these concepts would damage the book irretrievably. The concepts are basic to American life, but it would indeed be difficult to contend that they are the only ones which are so. Here there is room for legitimate difference of opinion, and certainly Professor Hacker would not agree upon the inclusion of all of these...