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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dry as dust but informative, April 26, 2004
Historian Manfred Jonas, in "Isolationism in America, 1935-1941," attempts to fill a critical gap in the historiography of twentieth century noninterventionism. Other scholars of the topic-including Wayne S. Cole, Selig Adler, and Robert Divine-crafted works focusing on specific organizations or about legislative battles whether the United States should join the war in Europe. Jonas's book takes a decidedly different tack by examining the thoughts and underlying assumptions of American isolationism. The author rejects the obstructionist label so many applied to the individuals and groups that opposed United States entry into the war. Rather, the book argues that men such as William Borah, Gerald Nye, Norman Thomas, and Charles Beard regularly engaged in debates and issues with an international focus. None supported the sorts of extreme closed-door policies practiced in Japan and China during the nineteenth century. What they did support was an America that would and could control its own foreign policy by staying out of potentially damaging foreign entanglements.Isolationism of the 1930s, argues Jonas, was the heir of two guiding principles first articulated in the earliest days of the American Republic: unilateralism in foreign affairs and the avoidance of war as a primary means of foreign policy. George Washington believed the country should choose whether to fight according to the nation's interests. Thomas Jefferson went further when he claimed there was a difference between involving the nation in international politics or temporary strategic alliances versus outright war in league with a foreign power. Even the history of the United States's conflicts with other nations, from clashing with Britain over Canada and Oregon to the Spanish-American war, supported rather than contradicted these two principles because America consistently acted alone. Unilateralism and avoidance of war would eventually present twentieth century isolationists with an insurmountable quandary, argues Jonas, because the two are ultimately incompatible when applied to specific situations. Isolationism reemerged in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, the increasingly aggressive militarism of the Axis powers, and World War I revisionism. Several books reappraising the latter event raised noninterventionist sentiment to a fever pitch. Commentators believed that Britain tricked America into joining the fight, that Germany bore little responsibility for the war, and financial interests and weapons makers worked behind the scenes to involve the United States in Europe's battles. The 1930's noninterventionists would eventually reformulate this last theme into what Charles Beard called the devil theory of war. The "devils" of the twentieth century were the wealthy and powerful men who ran the munitions industries. These interests profited by hiding behind the altruistic reasons given to Americans about why the country entered the First World War. And once again, foes of entering another European conflict argued, the weapons makers sought to earn enormous profits from a global clash. The formation of the Nye Committee in 1934, which launched a lengthy investigation into the munitions industries, was an isolationist attempt to exorcise the devils plaguing the country. Congressional committee members were not the only adherents of isolationism. Supporters came from all occupations, ethnicities, and political affiliations. Left leaning historian Charles Beard was an isolationist, as was Socialist Party chief Norman Thomas. The chairman of the board at Sears, Roebuck and Company, General Robert Wood, and media magnate William Randolph Hearst supported keeping America out of entangling foreign affairs. Moreover, while many devotees had ties to the Midwest, they came from all corners of the country. Hiram Johnson was a Senator from California, Hamilton Fish was a strident isolationist Congressman from New York, and Representative George Holden Tinker hailed from Massachusetts. In an effort to impose order on a large number of occasionally contradictory viewpoints, the author separates isolationists into five categories. Foreign-oriented isolationists wanted America to stay out of the war because they sympathized with Germany or the Soviet Union. Belligerents defended American rights, supported international law, and strictly adhered to nineteenth century unilateral foreign policies. Timid isolationists would give up certain rights in an effort to avoid involvement with overseas belligerents. Radicals wanted to stay out of the war completely because they believed doing so would allow for the creation of an entirely new social order at home. Conservative isolationism thought war would destroy old institutions and traditions. These rubrics, writes the author, are necessarily flexible since considerable overlapping of ideas often occurred. For example, Jonas places Hamilton Fish squarely in the camp of belligerent isolationism even though the congressman often helped spread the proposals of pro-Axis and anti-Semitic noninterventionists. The author unfortunately devotes most of his energies to the activities of the timid and belligerent camps at the expense of foreign-oriented, radical, and conservative groupings. A look at the sources used to research the book reveals several problems. First, Jonas made heavy use of the personal papers of William Borah, George Norris, Amos Pinchot, and Oswald Garrison Villard; he failed to peruse the Hamilton Fish, Gerald Nye, and Robert Wood collections. Such an omission could be forgiven if committed by a graduate student researching a seminar paper, but it is extremely problematic in a groundbreaking work written by a trained scholar. Jonas at no point mentions whether these papers were unavailable to him. Second, he relies heavily on speeches made in the 1930s and 1940s in lieu of personal interviews with principal figures, many of which were still alive when he researched and wrote this book. The author missed out on an excellent chance to discover what the old isolationists thought about their actions twenty years later. Manfred Jonas's book is a valuable contribution to the study of the isolationist phenomenon, but it could have been a much better work if the author had consulted a greater range of sources.
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by Sean Wilentz
by Niall Ferguson
