Gary Gerstle traces the forces of civic and racial nationalism, arguing that both profoundly American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century. The dialectical tension between these two ideals lies at the heart of Gary Gerstle’s monograph, American Crucible. Much like E. J. Hobsbawm’s analysis of the. American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century By Gary Gerstle Paperback, pages. Princeton University Press List price.
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Although I don’t quite agree with every aspect of Gerstle’s tidy argument, this is an impressive and thought-provoking history of the intertwined and competing notions of race and identity in 20th century US history. This sweeping history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Gerstle argues that after the fall of the Rooseveltian Nation, the United States was in a state of shock.
In this view war offers a way for the country to test itself, and to fight for its most important values. Books by Gary Gerstle. The Best Books of That nations are invented and variable underscores how much they are sociopolitical creations and, as such, historically contingent.
Excerpt: ‘American Crucible’
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. I’m sure tons of people thought these things already long before the 60’s, but lacked the power, confidence, and safety to actually say them and live them out. There is a lot of material here.
But in the early twentieth century, the rise of the corporations transformed the economic and political landscape. Disciplinary campaigns would lift up some, but not all, groups of racial inferiors into the American mainstream.
The result of americn sea change in the ‘s is that racial nationalism has been more or less fully discredited and civic nationalism has been abandoned in favor of multiculturalism, leaving behind a more fragmented society, I have two problems with this partially valid argument: Most notable was the way he treated the reputation of black cavalryman who had fought in the Spanish-American War. The advocates of xmerican nation espoused an expansive civic nationalist creed: The manufacture of new products and the creation of new wealth generated hopes that a society of general affluence was in reach, but the inability of millions to escape industrial poverty spread despair.
I examine the antinomies of the civic and racialist traditions in the writings and speeches of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, and explore the ways in which these same oppositions figured xrucible many of the moments that defined the nation they built, from Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill in to Lyndon Johnson’s confrontation with the Mississippi Freedom Democrats at the Democratic National Convention.
Facebook Twitter Flipboard Email. Ben rated it really liked it Feb 10, As a presidential candidate John F. 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. Aug 07, Amz rated it it was amazing. Sign In or Create an Account.
Following this rupture, Gerstle asserts, the once unified nation became atomized by pluralism and a deeply cynical mood pervaded the social atmosphere. Great text for studying race and immigration relations in the US. In the pages that follow, I reconstruct the efforts to stretch the meaning of civic nationalism in this way, showing first how these efforts enjoyed success during the progressive and New Deal eras and then how the anticommunism of the Cold War snapped civic nationalism back into an older, and less flexible, form.
Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved for those who are white and of the “right” For anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic, this book is must reading.
American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century by Gary Gerstle
Overlapping this is the effect of immigration policy and war on this mix mixture of racial and civic nationalism. Contents Theodore Roosevelts Racialized Nation Books Featured In This Story. Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved cruciboe those who are white and of the “right” ancestry?
For Gerstle civic nationalism is ably represented ammerican the views of historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. On the flip side, what is the value of unity if it doesn’t take into account injustices crucibpe inequalities? Steve Lazar rated it it was amazing May 05, View Full Version of PW. The notion that race might have been constitutive of American democracy, welfare policy, the labor movement, and other progressive developments rarely surfaced.
The Crisis in Atlantic City.