Customer Reviews

Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchist

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Bill Kauffman's "Look Homeward, America" is as refreshingly quirky as the heroes of place, community, and freedom one meets in its pages. It is a brilliant book, but also one that frequently causes the reader to wince--at times because Kauffman's keen observations are expressed so succinctly as to overwhelm with their heart-rending truth and honesty, at other times because his free flowing invective is so spot on it seems almost brutally cruel.

Part rhapsodic panegyric, part unmitigated venting of spleen, "Look Homeward, America" explores everything Kauffman loves and loathes about America: the modern America of chain restaurants, shopping malls, big box stores, fake boobs, and smart bombs and the not-yet-dead alternative America rooted in the love of place and communitarian values. Kauffman shows us that this alternative America has a worthy history exemplified by an unlikely cast of heroes including U.S. Senators Eugene McCarthy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, founders of the Catholic Worker Movement Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, mid-western visual artists John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, Maine novelist and founder of a "love militia" Carolyn Chute, and the great Kentucky farmer and agrarian author and essayist Wendell Berry, just to name a few.

His invective is reserved mainly for politicians: JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Kissinger, Bush, Cheney, the Clintons. And it can be quite nasty: he calls Kennedy a "priapic skirt-chasing male bimbo" and mocks his "fabled forty-five second love marathons." He takes a nice swipe at the National Organization of Women, "who stroked Senator Clinton's randy husband as though they were silky hookers." And another swipe at "diversity," "...back in those prelapsarian days before mandatory 'diversity' drove off the entire nineteenth century and left our daughters with the belief that the Revolutionary and Civil Wars were fought primarily by runaway slaves and girls dress as boys."

But "Look Homeward" is not an endless tirade; there's plenty of love it in as well. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is about pariah novelist Carolyn Chute, a woman now universally ignored and disdained by the mainstream media and chattering literary class. Nevertheless, Carolyn Chute is a woman whose ideas deserve a hearing and thankfully Bill Kauffman had the gumption to interview her and share her insights with the public rather than turn away in horror from someone so un-p.c. as to advocate armed militias.

Although published by ISI, "Look Homeward" is not unlikely to make conservative Republican readers feel ill at ease. (For example, Kauffman at one point viciously flays Lamar Alexander while extolling the goodness of Mother Jones. And he's no more a fan of Reagan than Clinton or LBJ.) However, in a time of mindless red state/blue state myopia Kauffman's fearlessness in searching out the virtuous traits of politicos from both the left and the right of the political spectrum--what Kauffman calls "our hopelessly inadequate and painfully constrictive political corral"--is both stimulating and challenging.

"Look Homeward, America" is a fine book. At once discursive, discerning, gentle, bitter, nostalgic, and hopeful, it aptly describes the moral and spiritual emptiness of a far-flung empire of the deracinated, and the joys to be found instead in family and community life firmly rooted in place and history. It is also a nice antidote to Rod Dreher's Crunchy Cons, which is a fine book and expresses some of the same sentiments but is a bit too prissy and pulls too many punches. Bill Kauffman doesn't pull any punches.

I read Bill Kauffman's remarkable Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism not long ago, and while I think "Look Homeward, America" is every bit as educational and inspirational, I probably should have read it first. Personally, I found "Ain't..." a more satisfying mix of polemic and personality, in that it was heavier on the former while "Look Homeward..." is stronger on the latter. But taken together, the two books are a solid defense of the almost-forgotten, certainly suppressed, patriotism of localism, liberty, and peace.

The author's argument in "Look Homeward, America" takes the adventurous reader into a world of ideas and ideals a long way from public elementary school civics classes, and equally far from the conventional taxonomy of "liberal" and "conservative." At times, Kauffman's attempt to describe Gene McCarthy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan as "conservatives" -- even of this eclectic sort -- reminded me of a book I read a long time ago (Say the Right Thing: Talk Radio's Favorite Conservative Quotes, Notes and Gloats by GOP activist Floyd Brown and Seattle talk radio host Kirby Wilbur) which included so-called "conservative" quotations from people like Chairman Mao and William O. Douglas. Saying a few "conservative" things does not make one a "conservative," however you choose to define it. So I admit to some skepticism here. However, I am certainly willing to be convinced, because I have gained a great deal of respect for Bill Kauffman's view of the world, as well as his remarkable skill as an entertaining and engrossing writer.

I learned quite a bit from "Look Homeward, America" though, as I said, I personally found "Ain't My America" a stronger book. I am now reading Kauffman's brand-new Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin (Lives of the Founders), which is itself proving to be a remarkable book. For best results, I would view "Look Homeward..." as the first part of a trilogy that includes those other titles as well. If the picture Kauffman paints in this book intrigues your intellect, tugs at your heartstrings, or both, you'll only benefit from following the author into those next books as well.

In "Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals", Bill Kauffmann provides a series of essays on some of the most fascinating figures of American political culture over the centuries, ranging from the fairly familiar like Dorothy Day to the highly obscure, like Maine novelist Carolyn Chute.

Although the figures he discusses are varied, all of them share a deep distrust not only of big government, but also in contrast to Austrians like Human Events and Thomas Woods, big business. Instead, most envisioned a society in which workers would be able to control their own lives. Though I was upon reading the book very familiar with the ideal of workers' self-control via radical Trotskyists at Melbourne University, the ideal here is manifested as an ideal of peaceful local self-reliance in which people are able to produce what they need and trade locally. In Kauffmann's view, attachment should be to one's local place and not to the vast nation-state and its military-industrial complex: a view I have come to sympathise with from readings on both sides of politics. Yet - and this is something my own personal experience tells me well to be necessary - Kauffmann understands how responsibility is much more than making choices every few years but must be seen in one's actions at all times. Despite Kauffmann's strong Catholicism, there are numerous moments of praise in "Look Homeward America" for what most would regard as quite ordinary popular culture; thus the book never comes off as preachy or harsh. Rather, Kauffmann comes off as lighthearted and humorous and as a very easy read even for those with little knowledge of politics.

In the process of describing some of the more little-known figures like Grant Wood, Kauffmann not only shows what they stood for but provides a number of real-life stories that is exceptional for any person writing about serious politics: for instance, how Wood's ideals evolved in the Iowa plains takes up a good proportion of the book, as does his account of obscure 1850s President Millard Fillmore and his efforts to prevent war between the North and South, together with Carolyn Chute's history in the remote interior of Maine as a potato-picker who worked for extraordinarily low wages but still coped well.

All in all, if you want an introduction to an overlooked but genuine "Third Way", "Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals" is truly the book to buy.

Bill Kauffman is one of the finest writers of our time. Great style, great viewpoint. This is a fascinating book using selected individuals to illustrate the best of American culture. Along the way, Kauffman goes off on some side roads and we get to hear some lesser-known folks with important things to say. I highly recommend this and every other Kauffman book.

Wow! What a great book! But a dangerous one too. Not only are the concepts thought-provoking and contranarian but it will send you to the Amazon search button as you hunt up (and order) books by and on the folks he cameos. Kauffman will have you (re)considering people and themes you know, don't know, think you know but really don't. Simply brilliant! And he can write, turing a phrase with elan and humor. This book will make you think, rethink, and investigate all sorts of viewpoints in a very non-consensus surf across American history, culture and politics. Highly recommended.

Let no one accuse Bill Kauffman of being lukewarm. His "Look Homeward, America" is a rollicking, almost freewheeling survey of some unorthodox thinkers who did or do eshew super-sized militarism and strangling federalism, universal corporatism and commercial uniformity, and who did or do desire local control in nearly every arena of life. Chapters bob and weave as they address politicians compared, economic distribution systems, regional art, empire and war, working-class anarchists, civil war "reactionary radicals," and localism at work in Kaufmann's own backyard.

With wit, gossipy and creative connectivity, and vocabulary that the national student's spelling bee ought to raid, the peppery author always lets the reader know exactly where he stands, both on philosophical points and on august and not so august personages. He pronounces - as he sees fit and with nimbleness and unperturbed surety - admiring, admonishing, or acicular judgments on the likes of Patrick Moynihan, Eugene McCarthy, Dorothy Day, Clement Vallandigham and Wendall Berry. Although some of his subjects hold opinions farther "out there" than a more placid freethinker like myself could wholly embrace, Kauffman's core vision for his beloved country shines with solid values, a peaceful intent toward all peoples, and a preservation and conservation instinct that most "conventional" liberals, conservatives, and even independents can't claim. Kauffman's ideal is healthy and sane. Recommended.

The author presents outlines of several Americans, that are neither liberal nor conservative, but instead are an unusual blend of left and right: They tend to be anti-war; But conservative in that they value family, spirituality, tradition, and are worried that modern life is eroding those values; They dont like big brother or large corporations; They dont trust the federal government to intrude on many aspects of life (education, welfare, health); They value the constitutional principles of the founding fathers; They think that neighbors are more important that politicians.

The profiles include Eugene McCarthy (senator), Dorothy Day (Catholic Worker movement), Grant Wood (artist), Wendell Berry (poet).

Eugene McCarthy committed political suicide when he ran against fellow democrat LBJ, in response to LBJ's proclamation (made thru an undersecretary of state) about the Vietnam war: "a presidential declaration of war is out-moded in the international arena". McCarthy thought the US was being too arrogant, too ambitious, too mechanical.

Dorothy Day was a "distributionist" which is another name for Jeffersonian democracy: de-centralized government, no bureaucracy, everyone owning their own land, farm, or business. She was distinguished from communists because distributionists do not believe in collective ownership. She hated demeaning assembly lines and promoted handicrafts.

Wendell Berry was a poet who asked (during the Vietnam war) "Is there any right I have, any property or freedom, that I would want my son to die for? ... and the answer is no".

The author has collected scores of intriguing and stimulating quotes and anecdotes, but he does a terrible job enunciating his unifying point, which is: he is celebrating daily family life and asserts that our public policies should be based on that family life, and should not be decided by big business and soulless bureaucracies.

But, sure, schoolchildren and backyard gardens are sweet and noble, but the book fails to address the follow-on questions: If we were to adopt a decentralized, agrarian, home-centered government system, what would happen to mail delivery? To airline service? To health care? To the defense of our country if invaded? To consumer rights? To prices paid by consumers?

When mad cow disease comes knocking, I'm glad the FDA is there to mount a nationwide campaign against it :-)

Although the author is certainly anti-war, he is not a simplistic Al Franken style demagogue: in many ways he disagrees with the Democratic platform also.

Even though the book is a bit disjointed, I would still recommend it to anyone interested in public policy, because of the scores of thought-provoking quotes and anecdotes.

Never have a I so disliked a book that so agree with.

Kauffman's writing style could generously be described as dense; I got the distinct impression that his main goal in this book was to demonstrate that he had memorized the entirety of the Oxford English Dictionary, and was going to prove all doubters wrong by using as many obscure words as he possibly could.

The book is also very New York-centric: he spends a lot of time talking about this state, about upstate towns and people, about politicians like Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Millard Fillmore. But I honestly don't care at all about these people, and I still don't. In making his book so regional, Kauffman lost a lot of universal interest, I think.

One last beef I had with this book was how dated it seems now. In the wake of an Obama electoral victory, his whinging about Bush and Cheney ring about as hollow as old hippies carping about Nixon. Again, I just don't care!

His political ideas are admirable and deserve more acclaim. But I wish he'd written a better book about them; I was SO looking forward to this book, but now I am very disappointed. There are many better books out there than this one, so I'd say don't waste your time.