William C. Dowling. Literary Federalism in the Age of Jefferson: Joseph Dennie and The Port Folio, 1801-1811. University of South Carolina Press, 1999.
This is a work of literary study rather than history; it is still an interesting investigation of Federalism as an intellectual movement, grounded in classical republicanism and the American experience.
According to Dowling, the magazine The Port Folio, under the editorship of Joseph Dennie (who died at the age of 44 in 1811) began as a mouthpiece for vigorous Federalist opposition to the rise of Jeffersonian Republicanism (or "American jacobinism") but eventually Dennie came to the conclusion that the rise of the demos (the people) driving Jefferson's triumph would be permanent and irreversible. Therefore, Federalism retreated from being a primarily political and public stance to being a literary mode of thought, one for those who chose to retreat into a transatlantic "republic of letters" in implicit rejection of the vulgar, market-oriented democratic culture which was now in power. This pose of studied resistance and studious withdrawal became the pose of a particular and important strain in American literature, passed along first through Washington Irving and then Thoreau, Melville, and finally culminating in Henry James and Santayana.
This is a short study which approaches the fate of Federalism in a novel way, as according to Dowling, Dennie and others were already resigned to the perpetual marginalization of Federalism even before the War of 1812 and the aftermath of the Hartford Convention.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Magic Lands
John M. Findlay. Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940.
University of California Press, 1992.
Findlay's book focuses on four "magic lands" in the post-World War II era; I presume the choice of 1940 as the beginning of his periodization reflects the importance of the war industry in the growth of the region economically and demographically. The phrase "magic land" is his own descriptor, which he roughly defines as urban areas which were planned districts, distinct from the surrounding metropolitan area, planned in reaction to the specter of unrestricted suburban sprawl, and finally based on or influenced by the first of the four--Disneyland, in Anaheim, California.
Aside from that amusement park, the other three "magic lands" are the Stanford Industrial Park what would become "Silicon Valley"; the Sun City retirement community outside Phoenix, Arizona; and the Seattle World's Fair grounds. Aside from the above-mentioned commonalities, Findlay argues that these collectively had a significant influence on the development of--and, more importantly, the validation of--the distinctively Western style of urban development which came into prominence in from around 1950 through the mid-60's (when concerns about sprawl, crime, poverty, and especially environmental degradation began to resonate in Western politics).
The Western style of urban growth was different from the Eastern style which was grounded in the experience of the 19th century industrial revolution. The latter was centered on a densely-settled central core, and featured mixed-use zoning, an overall high population density, and centered economic and cultural activity in a traditional downtown. According the Findlay, many in the West (including, during this period, many migrants from the East and Midwest) explicitly rejected the Eastern city as the ideal model and sought to create something new. The rapid spread of a newer model based on single-family housing, horizontal rather than vertical growth, and the privileging of the automobile over mass-transit created a radically different model, but it was often a seemingly shapeless and confusingly fast-growing city which struck many as being alienating and featureless. The different "magic lands" in his study were attempts, in various ways, to control, improve, and rationalize the new Western city taking shape.
Findlay makes a strong case that planners, developers, civic leaders, and ordinary citizens in the West sought to create the sprawling, car-centered cityscapes they lived in, and his argument that "magic lands" were archetypal models which influenced the development of much of the suburban built environment much of America calls home today. He works hard--perhaps too hard--to understand these magic lands on their own terms, and to appreciate the ways in which those who lived in them, worked in them, or visited them would have perceived their benefits; while this is laudable and important, he skews the argument so far in that direction that his observations about the ways in which lower-income and non-white communities were adversely affected or at least ignored lack the weight they probably should. And Findlay seems remarkably uninterested in the ultimate costs of the sprawl these magic lands helped legitimize. Or perhaps he believes that is a different story, one which shouldn't overshadow the ways in which these communities were conceptualized and experienced at the time. At any rate, this is a compelling study, worth reading if you are interested in the history of the American West, the postwar suburbs, or the rise of middle-class consumer culture in the post World War II era.
University of California Press, 1992.
Findlay's book focuses on four "magic lands" in the post-World War II era; I presume the choice of 1940 as the beginning of his periodization reflects the importance of the war industry in the growth of the region economically and demographically. The phrase "magic land" is his own descriptor, which he roughly defines as urban areas which were planned districts, distinct from the surrounding metropolitan area, planned in reaction to the specter of unrestricted suburban sprawl, and finally based on or influenced by the first of the four--Disneyland, in Anaheim, California.
Aside from that amusement park, the other three "magic lands" are the Stanford Industrial Park what would become "Silicon Valley"; the Sun City retirement community outside Phoenix, Arizona; and the Seattle World's Fair grounds. Aside from the above-mentioned commonalities, Findlay argues that these collectively had a significant influence on the development of--and, more importantly, the validation of--the distinctively Western style of urban development which came into prominence in from around 1950 through the mid-60's (when concerns about sprawl, crime, poverty, and especially environmental degradation began to resonate in Western politics).
The Western style of urban growth was different from the Eastern style which was grounded in the experience of the 19th century industrial revolution. The latter was centered on a densely-settled central core, and featured mixed-use zoning, an overall high population density, and centered economic and cultural activity in a traditional downtown. According the Findlay, many in the West (including, during this period, many migrants from the East and Midwest) explicitly rejected the Eastern city as the ideal model and sought to create something new. The rapid spread of a newer model based on single-family housing, horizontal rather than vertical growth, and the privileging of the automobile over mass-transit created a radically different model, but it was often a seemingly shapeless and confusingly fast-growing city which struck many as being alienating and featureless. The different "magic lands" in his study were attempts, in various ways, to control, improve, and rationalize the new Western city taking shape.
Findlay makes a strong case that planners, developers, civic leaders, and ordinary citizens in the West sought to create the sprawling, car-centered cityscapes they lived in, and his argument that "magic lands" were archetypal models which influenced the development of much of the suburban built environment much of America calls home today. He works hard--perhaps too hard--to understand these magic lands on their own terms, and to appreciate the ways in which those who lived in them, worked in them, or visited them would have perceived their benefits; while this is laudable and important, he skews the argument so far in that direction that his observations about the ways in which lower-income and non-white communities were adversely affected or at least ignored lack the weight they probably should. And Findlay seems remarkably uninterested in the ultimate costs of the sprawl these magic lands helped legitimize. Or perhaps he believes that is a different story, one which shouldn't overshadow the ways in which these communities were conceptualized and experienced at the time. At any rate, this is a compelling study, worth reading if you are interested in the history of the American West, the postwar suburbs, or the rise of middle-class consumer culture in the post World War II era.
Saturday, May 14, 2016
The Whole World is Watching
Todd Gitlin. The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making & Unmaking of the New Left.
University of California Press, 1980
Gitlin--a veteran of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the New Left struggles of the 1960's--is mostly interested in understanding the ways in which the collapse of the SDS and the subsequent degeneration of the New Left into increasingly militant and hopelessly revolutionary sects and sub-sects. He also wants future (as of 1980) resistance and opposition groups to learn from those failures and adjust to the ongoing hegemony of liberal capitalist society.
As such, this isn't really a book of history although Gitlin does believe that a historical approach is important in the middle section of the book, which traces the process by which the mass media first marginalized, then reacted to, and then finally--due to the sheer force of its attention on the fragile infrastructure and naive leadership of the SDS--destroyed the radical challenge to American military involvement in Vietnam. The later, more broad-based 'moderate' antiwar movement, then, was in some ways used by the media as a respectable norm against which the radicals could be conceptualized as a disreputable--and marginalized--other.
Ironically, Gitlin published this shortly before the Reagan era--the liberal establishment represented by the New York Times and the TV network news organizations was on its last legs, something he cannot be faulting for not foreseeing. Part I and Part III are most interesting to those with an interest in New Left politics, media criticism, and the Marxist concept of hegemony. Part II, will also be of special interest to historians interested in a particular perspective on the rise and fall of the SDS and Sixties radicalism in general.
University of California Press, 1980
Gitlin--a veteran of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the New Left struggles of the 1960's--is mostly interested in understanding the ways in which the collapse of the SDS and the subsequent degeneration of the New Left into increasingly militant and hopelessly revolutionary sects and sub-sects. He also wants future (as of 1980) resistance and opposition groups to learn from those failures and adjust to the ongoing hegemony of liberal capitalist society.
As such, this isn't really a book of history although Gitlin does believe that a historical approach is important in the middle section of the book, which traces the process by which the mass media first marginalized, then reacted to, and then finally--due to the sheer force of its attention on the fragile infrastructure and naive leadership of the SDS--destroyed the radical challenge to American military involvement in Vietnam. The later, more broad-based 'moderate' antiwar movement, then, was in some ways used by the media as a respectable norm against which the radicals could be conceptualized as a disreputable--and marginalized--other.
Ironically, Gitlin published this shortly before the Reagan era--the liberal establishment represented by the New York Times and the TV network news organizations was on its last legs, something he cannot be faulting for not foreseeing. Part I and Part III are most interesting to those with an interest in New Left politics, media criticism, and the Marxist concept of hegemony. Part II, will also be of special interest to historians interested in a particular perspective on the rise and fall of the SDS and Sixties radicalism in general.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Barbarian Virtues
Matthew Frye Jacobson. Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917. Hill and Wang, 2000.
Matthew Frye Jacobson proposes a close relationship/parallel between American expansionist foreign policy and immigration policy domestically during the Progressive era. In his telling, there was not only a strong relation between the two but in some ways they were part of the same process. Fundamentally, the rise of industrial capitalism and the accompanying fear of over-production prodded both the search for new overseas markets (particularly in Asia) and created the need for a steady and ample supply of low-skill, low-wage labor. Thus, even as Americans were being driven to annex or obtain de facto control over distant territories—and negotiating how to incorporate these “non-white “peoples into the American polity in some way—they were also confronting the influx of enormous numbers of non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Protestant immigrants who simultaneously served the economic needs of the new economy while providing a scapegoat for its excesses and civic and social shortcomings.
Jacobson makes the connection between the then-mainstream phenomenon of scientific racism and both foreign policy and the developing immigration regime developing during the era. He also makes it clear that the time period covered represented an era of continuity between nineteenth century Manifest Destiny and twentieth century expansionism and globalized foreign policy. This is a facet of American history which has been ignored too often; this amnesia helps feed a false dichotomy between an earlier, allegedly less tumultuous period of mass immigration versus contemporary controversies.
Matthew Frye Jacobson proposes a close relationship/parallel between American expansionist foreign policy and immigration policy domestically during the Progressive era. In his telling, there was not only a strong relation between the two but in some ways they were part of the same process. Fundamentally, the rise of industrial capitalism and the accompanying fear of over-production prodded both the search for new overseas markets (particularly in Asia) and created the need for a steady and ample supply of low-skill, low-wage labor. Thus, even as Americans were being driven to annex or obtain de facto control over distant territories—and negotiating how to incorporate these “non-white “peoples into the American polity in some way—they were also confronting the influx of enormous numbers of non-Anglo-Saxon, non-Protestant immigrants who simultaneously served the economic needs of the new economy while providing a scapegoat for its excesses and civic and social shortcomings.
Jacobson makes the connection between the then-mainstream phenomenon of scientific racism and both foreign policy and the developing immigration regime developing during the era. He also makes it clear that the time period covered represented an era of continuity between nineteenth century Manifest Destiny and twentieth century expansionism and globalized foreign policy. This is a facet of American history which has been ignored too often; this amnesia helps feed a false dichotomy between an earlier, allegedly less tumultuous period of mass immigration versus contemporary controversies.
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