American Beliefs: What Keeps a Big Country and a Diverse People United [Hardcover]

John Harmon McElroy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 1999 | ISBN-10: 1566632315 | ISBN-13: 978-1566632317 | Edition: 1St Edition

Why do so many different people with widely dissimilar ideas and customs get along as Americans? In American Beliefs, John McElroy identifies and explains those essential ideas that keep a big country and a diverse people united, tracing them historically from their origins in the earliest experiences of the American colonists. A powerful antidote to decades of concentration on the differences among Americans. A magnificent and timely book. John McElroy picks up where de Tocqueville left off. --Charles Moskos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It is axiomatic in some quarters that, while traditional nations such as France are bonded by blood and language, the U.S. is founded on ideas and beliefs. In chapters devoted to frontier beliefs, immigrant beliefs, religious and moral beliefs, social beliefs, political beliefs and others, University of Arizona English professor McElroy sets out to delineate the beliefs that define the American nation. Noting that beliefs are not necessarily consciously held but that they do exist in a culture, he gives brief, serviceable historical summaries of how American beliefs took root and evolved. Among those beliefs are: "everyone must work"; "improvement is possible"; "each person is responsible for his own well being"; "America is a chosen country"; "achievement determines social rank"; "the least government possible is the best"; human beings will abuse power when they have it." Sometimes, McElroy comes close to peddling a triumphalist history of the spread of European ideas in a savage land. But he generally, if dutifully, notes that it took some time for a majority to extend the most cherished of American beliefs (in liberty and equality) to all of society (slavery, he writes, was a "perversion of American beliefs"). In the end, however, his laundry list of American beliefs is an exercise more in cataloguing than analysis. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

In the tradition of William Bennett comes this well-written, argument-provoking compendium of American virtues. McElroy, a professor of English at the University of Arizona, spent the late 1960s teaching courses in American studies at the University of Salamanca in Spain, where, he writes, ``I had to think seriously and systematically for the first time in my life about what we mean when we refer to culture, why different cultures have formed, and how the culture of the United States differs from other cultures in the Americas and Europe.'' His book takes a sometimes lecture-like, but certainly accessible air as he examines these matters in turn, beginning with the sensible observation that ``a historical culture can be formally defined as a unique set of extremely simple beliefs,'' such as, in the case of the prewar Japanese, the notion that the emperor was a god or, in the case of revolutionary-era Americans, that all men are created equal. The simplicity of those beliefs, McElroy writes, means that its easy to transmit them from one generation to another and to assimilate them. McElroy's catalog of what those beliefs are, exactly, comes from sources from Poor Richard's Almanack on down, and they are largely unobjectionable: ``Manual work is respectable.'' ``Freedom of movement is needed for success.'' ``Helping others helps yourself.'' ``Every individual's success improves society.'' McElroy, an evident conservative, has no truck with Karl Marx's formulation that the dominant ideas in a society are those of the ruling class; in his view, which will likely be dismissed by those of leftward leanings, these ideas are what makes Americans American. He closes with a lament against ``the simultaneous weakening of so many American beliefs'' in the face of what he calls ``uncompromising ideologies''meaning, one supposes, liberalism and its kin. Call it, well, a book of rules for nonradicals. (maps) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; 1St Edition edition (February 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566632315
• ISBN-13: 978-1566632317
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #990,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars America, where some beliefs were born, August 26, 2000

By 

Dan Schobert (Plover, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Beliefs: What Keeps a Big Country and a Diverse People United (Hardcover)

Beliefs A book review

Its been said that we learn nothing from history. This appears to be true, but only to the extent that history is ignored. When we pay attention to history, we are bound to learn something. A good dose of history can sometimes put us back on a road we've tended to leave. This may be the case while reading a brief account of how America and the American way of came to be.

In some 230 pages John Harmon McElroy reminds readers of the various reasons America developed as it did. McElroy, in American Beliefs (1999) from Ivan Dee Publishers, Chicago, expounds upon twenty-five beliefs or ideas that have contributed to America's development. The book, subtitled: "What keeps a big country and a diverse people united," has ten chapters. McElroy, professor emeritus of English at the University of Arizona, would have his readers look at the things which have kept us, as a people, together instead of the things which have so often divided us.

The 24 beliefs are listed under seven of the ten chapter headings: Primary Beliefs of American Culture, Immigrant Beliefs, Frontier Beliefs, Religious and Moral Beliefs, Social Beliefs, Political Beliefs and Beliefs on Human Nature. Along the way in his treatment of these beliefs McElroy shows how it came about that the land which developed into America was different from developments in Canada, Central & western South America and in Brazil. All of these areas were receiving European emigrants at about the same time, but development here was much different than in the other regions. So the author works to give a broad overview of history and how America came forth in a unique way.

One example of the beliefs McElroy presents is one we might think is only common sense: everyone must work. Such an idea or belief, it seems, developed in contrast to what was usual in England and much of northern Europe, the areas from which most people came. In the old country there was an aristocracy in which certain people, because of their birthrights, were expected to be served by others, those lesser-born people. This system did not work on these shores as there was simply to much to do, to survive...no place for lazy bones. So those who expected to be served were told, in effect, work or die. (Sounds like: 2 Thessalonians 3:10 "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.") So those who had wished to be served, worked..and the belief that everyone must work became a part of our culture, and pretty much remains that way today. While people reach different economic stages, none is considered a nobleman by birth.and this was a new idea.

McElroy takes a little different twist on the idea that America is a chosen land, as being chosen of God. On page 131 he says: "The United States is God's country in the sense that Americans for many generations have felt that their nation has been especially blessed by God, that it could never have been established and endured so successfully without God's favor and protection. The belief is also true in the sense that, as a people, Americans have believed that God has wanted to use America as part of a divine plan for the redemption of mankind, by the creation of a new nation modeled on new principles of behavior. America is also a 'chosen country' in the sense that those who created it were mostly those who chose to emigrate to it and descendants."

Of special interested in these days of much discussion about the idea of Freedom of Religion, McElroy addresses the 'free exercise' clause of that first amendment to the U-S Constitution. Like many who insist that the Constitution only makes sense when its original intent is maintained, he makes this statement which needs to resound in many courts and public places today: "No provision of the Constitution protects any citizen from being offended by the religious practices of another citizen." How often we have instituted some legislation because someone is offended by religion, but the Constitution says there shall be 'freedom to exercise' our religious positions, regardless of any offense received., perhaps limited only to the extent of causing some public hazard. This clearly points out the value of history because as we have gotten away from initial Constitutional meanings, we have wandered off the road into confusion.

The books concludes with some observations, that much has happened in this culture in the past 40 years or so, perhaps instigated by the Supreme Court's decision to eliminate school prayers. "It is certain," he says, " that since WW-II some principles of American culture have been emphasized to the detriment of others. The principle of freedom, for instance, has been promoted without regard to responsibility, calls for improvement have been made without regard to practicality, and equality has sometimes been demanded with a zeal that ignores differences among individuals. Too often in the last 40 years of the 20th century, it seems, America's cultural history has been set aside in favor of uncompromising ideologies."

The book is an easy read and recommended for anyone interested in American history, especially high school and college students needing a better appreciation of what it means to be an American.

Dan Schobert August 29, 1999

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes My Blood Run Red-White-And-Blue, March 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: American Beliefs: What Keeps a Big Country and a Diverse People United (Hardcover)

I agree that every American should read this book -- and everybody else for that matter. I don't agree that it's scholarly. Rather, it's a joy to read -- easy to understand even for a person with two master's degrees! Between McElroy's chapter on How American Culture was Formed and Ken Burns' Lewis & Clark, I don't know which makes my blood run red-white-and-bluer. And as a child of the anti-establishment `60s, it's done a lot toward helping me understand why we Americans do what we do. It's the best history book I've ever read, the best history course I've ever taken or taught. I'm buying it for my home library for my grandchildren to use as a resource. We're also using it as a resource for a book on urban planning.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book should be manditory reading for every American., June 28, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Pomona, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Beliefs: What Keeps a Big Country and a Diverse People United (Hardcover)

This is an easy reading but powerful book about what it means to be an American and the formation and development of our culture and shared values. It is scholerly but entertaining. It should be mandatory reading for all high school and college students. In a time that people are looking for their roots and cultural identity, this book is a must.