39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An accomplished historian at the top of his game, July 23, 2009
This review is from: Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 (American History) (Hardcover)
Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 (American History)In 1981 the young historian Jackson Lears impressed many with his publication of No Place of Grace, an interpretation of the antimodern strain in American thought and culture between 1880 and 1920. Lears neatly argued how the quest for intense experience, although seemingly just a back-channel reaction against the mainstream of modernism, carved the way for the transformation of nineteenth-century Protestant self-denial into the twentieth-century secular ideal of self-fulfillment.
In 2009 Lears, now at the apex of his career, takes on the same era with his broad overview of American politics and culture, Rebirth of a Nation. It is the work of a mature scholar, sufficiently accomplished to play on the same field with the most eminent historians of this segment of the American past, with Hofstadter, Wiebe, Lasch, Trachtenberg, and many others dutifully acknowledged in a very helpful set of bibliographical notes.
A major contribution of this volume is Lears' demonstration of the bonds between the narratives of personal and national regeneration in this period. The self-shaping aspirations of individuals influenced the currents of national politics, he proposes, and in turn public policies were often aimed at personal redemption. Longings for renewal formed by evangelical traditions melded into several "isms" that characterized the era: moralism, militarism, and Progressivism chief among them.
The connections were most obvious in the moralist "purity crusades," such as those against alcohol and gambling. But the linkage was also evident in the government's Native American and foreign policy, which gave scope to the male fantasy of revitalization through military action -- war was seen as wholesome by many. And the belief that social circumstances influenced individuals' fates lay at the core of Progressivism, with the corollary belief that social purification could breed personal purification.
Lears believes that future government policies were still up for grabs in the 1890s. He points out that reformers used the language of personal and social transformation, that "They wanted to use government to change people's behavior in unprecedented ways: to end class conflict, to control big business, to segregate society, to sober it up." He stresses the "producerism" of that period, which attempted to unite farmers and workers as the true representatives of "manly" ideals of economic independence, set against their common enemies in finance and business.
Wealthy Americans defended their privileges by cooperating with reformers on some things, Lears observes. For instance, many prominent business leaders supported the agenda of self-renewal and imperial expansion. Lears claims that Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, in particular, "helped to transform a plutocracy into a socially conscious elite." He notes a re-orientation of ruling class values from moralism to meritocracy and a shift from chaotic laissez-faire capitalism to corporate, managerial capitalism.
After 1900 workers made some headway; wages increased and working hours decreased, on average. But, according to Lears, the application of scientific management "guaranteed that the work itself would be tedious, demanding, and frequently mindless," with workers themselves losing control over the pace and process of their work. He sees "a new dialectic of work and play," where tedium at work could be compensated by amusement purchased off the job.
The foundations were forming for a consumption-driven culture. Lears writes of the equation of markets with progress, of how consumer demand was seen as the engine of human improvement. "Regeneration through purchase," he claims, was "the fantasy at the heart of the embryonic consumer culture."
Mass consumption was underwritten by imperialism, in Lears' view. He asserts that "... the aims of American empire were the same as those of European empire -- free access to foreign markets, raw materials, and investment opportunities, all in the name of a civilizing mission that (it was alleged) would bring regeneration to the colonizer and the colonized alike."
Woodrow Wilson's eventual decision to enter World War I reflected Progressivism at its most ambitious point, Lears suggests, with the world, not just the nation, as the target for renewal. For Lears, the rejection of the League of Nations treaty by the Senate represented the end of the age of regeneration.
Lears concludes that the taming of capitalism was the most desirable outcome of the popular longings for renewal, whereas one bad outcome was enforced conformity (most notably, Prohibition). In his judgment, "reform was at its most humane when empowering the previously powerless -- women, workers, children -- rather than enforcing majority values." Even though policies originating with populism were watered down through compromises with the corporate hierarchy, he believes, the Progressives "created the foundation for an American version of the welfare state."
Lears does a masterful job of integrating these and many other sub-themes which support his motif of rebirth. He provides solid insights on racism, the roles of women, vitalism and the reaction against positivism, and the ethic of peak performance, for example. Rich discussions of the lives, thought, actions, and impact of dozens of key figures are embedded in the very readable narrative. Readers may disagree with some of his emphases, judgments, and interpretations, but his reasoning is always clear.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A sobering look at American conceits and delusions, September 30, 2009
This review is from: Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 (American History) (Hardcover)
This very incisive, though often quite critical, book examines some of the major cultural currents in American society from the end of Reconstruction through WWI. It is the prevailing thinking and psychology of the period that most concerns the author. The book is not intended to be a detailed history of the era, but the author does examine such issues and developments as race, immigration, the degradation of labor, the rise of huge corporations, economic instability, consumerism, populism, progressivism, imperialism, militarism, etc, as well as reinvention of the self.
There is little doubt that the nation was in need of "regeneration" after the horrors of the Civil War. But that renewal was accomplished at the expense of those who were brutally affected by the Southern plantation system. The War was recast as an arena for heroic Anglo-Saxons, now united in their bravery regardless of which side they were on. By the last decade of the century, emancipation had given way to Jim Crow and, even worse, widespread lynching of those who did not kowtow. This spread of racism, heroism, and militarism dominated the ensuing decades. The author describes at length a national obsession among the upper classes of asserting and proving manliness. What better way to show superiority than to subject the brown peoples of the world to Yankee imperialism backed by the military? Theodore Roosevelt, in the author's eyes, is the epitome of such thinking and actions. The author scarcely hides his disdain for the obsession of elites with individual adventure and even bodybuilding.
Of course, a huge development in post-Civil War America was the rise of enormous corporations and their huge impact on workers and the broader culture. The Farmers' Alliance, the Populists, the Knights of Labor, the AFL, and the Socialists were all organizations that sought to counter corporate control of the economy and the degradation of work via mechanization and scientific management. They extolled the virtues of "producers" and sought to establish some form of cooperative commonwealth. Perhaps most important to them was democratic control of the financial system of the US. The chaos of economic cycles and principles of "hard" money always disproportionately affected workers and farmers.
Part of the rebirth of the nation can be looked at as attempts for purification. That took many forms: racial purity, assertion of manliness versus effeteness, and abstinence from alcohol. The Progressive movement can be seen as an effort of elites and experts to purify the economy: child labor laws, anti-trust legislation, reform of the banking system, and the like. As the author notes, their efforts were heavily compromised. Enhanced managerialism was emphasized over fundamental economic restructuring desired by populist groups and administrative regulation was usually adopted over statutory reform, which left corporations and their insiders firmly in charge. Woodrow Wilson succumbed to the impulses of purification and American assertiveness by involving the US in WWI at a great cost in lives with nothing to show for it. Though the author finds that Wilson's ultimate failures mark the end of an era beset by any number of delusions, the New Deal was able to draw upon this era, but without the same zeal and fantasies.
This book is relevant in regards to the making of modern America in several ways. There has been no abatement in the dominance of US corporations, US worldwide economic hegemony, the necessity of the regulatory state, and the driving force of consumerism. Perhaps less appealing is the same tendency to delusional thinking: the reliance on robust militarism and the conceit that the American political and economic systems can be force fed to nations around the world.
The book is definitely far more sobering than the title may suggest. There is not a whole lot of admiration for the grandiose thinking that has been and continues to be a significant part of American culture. While the book is quite interesting, it is not without a certain amount of meandering, vagueness, and unnecessary repetition, but not to the extent that makes the book unreadable or not worthwhile. The book has a superb bibliographical note.
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28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed Bag, December 31, 2009
This review is from: Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 (American History) (Hardcover)
This is a difficult book to judge as it does so many things well and an almost equal number so poorly. The opening summary essay is full of revisionist insight and illuminations, both negative and positive. Negative on figures not quite fully debunked such as Custer and on aristocrats still largely revered such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr and positive on individuals such as Jane Addams and William James. My copy of that part of the book is full of underlinings and exclamation marks. It made me think and tied some things together in a very useful manner.
But Lears too often crosses the line between a reporter of new insights and a fairly demagogic polemicist. The best case of this is his powerfully negative and extraordinarily one-dimensional portrait of Theodore Roosevelt. True enough, the reader familiar with the era feels, TR was consumed with a sadly limited definition of what constitutes manliness and remained largely adolescent in many critical ways. He was certainly not ahead of his times in terms of his written treatment of Native Americans, and on many if not most foreign policy matters he was a war-mongering jingoist right to the end. And, yes, the Spanish American war and his role in it seem ripe and fair subjects for comic ridicule. Good enough so far and a useful counterpoint to the many overly praising and romanticized portrayals of TR offered by authors such as Timothy Egan in "The Big Burn."
But TR was a complex not a simple figure and he was far more progressive, and more effectively progressive, than many of the characters that Lears treats more kindly. Tom Watson is a good example. TR was by no means a soul-mate of JP Morgan, as Lears would have you believe. And his campain for President in 1912 was not primarily about foreign policy; in fact, in 1912 he supported many progressive causes that would only come to fruition in the New Deal.
A fair portait of the man and the era would incude, for example, his remarkable campaign for conservation and the creation of so much protected land for public use. But then such a nuanced view of the time would offer other aristocrats such as Gifford Pinchot their moment in the progressive sun and that Lears would clearly rather not provide.
So the effect of the book is rather uneven and in the end unconvincing. It seems that Lears is carrying more political baggage than an historian should. And the book does not come close to recent monumental histories on individual epochs such as those published by The Oxford History of the United States, especially Gordon Wood's "Empire of Liberty" and Daniel Howe's "What Hath God Wrought."
This era still needs a modern, balanced and comprehensive treatment. This book provides some insight but fails basic tests of fairness and balance.
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