American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #683

by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Long before the United States was a nation, it was a set of ideas, projected onto the New World by European explorers with centuries of belief and thought in tow. From this foundation of expectation and experience, America and American thought grew in turn, enriched by the bounties of the Enlightenment, the philosophies of liberty and individuality, the tenets of religion, and the doctrines of republicanism and democracy. Crucial to this development were the thinkers who nurtured it, from Thomas Jefferson to Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. E. B. Du Bois to Jane Addams, and Betty Friedan to Richard Rorty. This addition to Oxford's Very Short Introductions series traces how Americans have addressed the issues and events of their time and place, whether it is the Civil War, the Great Depression, or the culture wars of today.

Spanning a variety of disciplines, from religion, philosophy, and political thought, to cultural criticism, social theory, and the arts, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen shows how ideas have been major forces in American history, driving movements such as transcendentalism, social Darwinism, conservatism, and postmodernism.

Genres: History, Philosophy, American History, Nonfiction, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published August 31, 2021

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

First was their shared interest in—and ambivalence about—the European Enlightenment. The modifier “European” here is significant, because during this Cold War period it becomes necessary to distinguish it from a newly discovered “American” one. American historian Adrienne Koch was the first to popularize the notion of a distinctly American (and more wholesome) Enlightenment

This is exactly the book I wanted to read to understand not just America's sense of its own intellectual history and thought trajectory but also why it can often be so divergent from European comprehension of ideas. I've frequently found myself discussing with American friends how we've grown up in different intellectual traditions and this book helps to clarify those variations and divergences. That doesn't play down the experiential differences such as the way European countries have had first hand experience of extreme fascist governments in a way that the US, 'over here' during the second world war, had not but the underpinning of theoretical ideas certainly doesn't seem to have moved in tandem, despite some co-locations.

Right from the very start of the independence project, there's a sense of American exceptionalism and a religious overtone of destiny: 'This optimism helped embolden many observers to imagine that American independence was not an accident of empire, but rather a fulfillment of Providence.'

I was somewhat surprised to understand how vast a topic race-based slavery was (and is?) in terms of being a foundation driving so much American thought, both negatively and positively: 'The desire for the enlightened republican vision of a government of independent landowners ensured that white freedom would continue to be predicated on Black exploitation and Native Americans’ dispossession of their ancestral lands and their ways of life.' Even the optimism of the Revolution and the establishment of institutions of learning were tainted: 'Much like Jefferson, who penned paeans to freedom while he had a workforce of slaves, early American universities were not only sites of Enlightenment race science but also the beneficiaries of racial oppression. Without exception, every American college was built on Native Americans’ dispossessed lands. Their connections to slavery varied in scope and kind, but none of them was exempt.' This kind of slant-eyed vision is a constant throughout the story told in this book with (white) Americans experiencing a kind of constant double-think.

It's also fascinating -and rather dispiriting - to see how many of America's present day arguments are rooted in a re-circulation of ideas from the past: 'Sumner’s science of society mixed Protestant ethics, classical economics, and democratic individualism in its advocacy of an unflinching “Darwinian” framework. In his 1883 treatise What Social Classes Owe to Each Other, which endorsed laissez-faire ideas, his answer was unapologetic: absolutely nothing'. That this selfish individualism co-exists with ideas of America's Manifest Destiny and brand of national religiosity is extraordinary - the mental juggling that allows these ideas to co-exist in the minds of both individuals and the nation must take up a huge amount of mental energy.

I've often wondered where America's paranoia about socialism/socialist initiatives (like the UK's revered National Health Service (NHS)) comes from and this book at least gives some ideas: 'Over the course of the 1920s, normalcy came to mean isolationism, with the United States backing away from the League of Nations. Normalcy also meant antiradicalism, with the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 and labor unrest at home bringing on fears of communism and anarchism. For many old-stock, white Protestants, normalcy also came to mean a belligerent nativism with tightened immigration laws'.

Perhaps most pressingly, though, this narrative explains American (and, of course, not all Americans are covered in my usage of that sweeping term) backed away from foundational European traditions of intellectual thought: rejecting Enlightenment thinking for a more 'American' and 'wholesome' version ('First was their shared interest in—and ambivalence about—the European Enlightenment. The modifier “European” here is significant, because during this Cold War period it becomes necessary to distinguish it from a newly discovered “American” one. American historian Adrienne Koch was the first to popularize the notion of a distinctly American (and more wholesome) Enlightenment'); seeing master narratives such as those of Freud, Nietzsche and (of course!) Marx as 'an unholy trinity of Continental thinkers corrupting American thought'. This retreat into a '“Christian front” to fight off these forces of evil' managed to simultaneously turn a blind eye to Jim Crow, Japanese internment camps and the capitalist exploitation of workers under this all-American rubric of democratic Christianity.

Race is an overwhelming term of discourse throughout this book and so it's fascinating to see the rhetoric of anti-immigration (from, as the book points out, a country comprised of immigrants) applied to intellectual ideas, especially from the 1960s with the influx of European ideas of postmodernism: 'But because a vocal minority of academics began working with postmodern ideas and interpretive strategies, even turning their spokespeople into adjectives for this way of thinking (“Foucauldian,” “Derridean”), worried observers sounded the alarm that a “foreign invasion” was infecting the academy and, by extension, the tender minds of impressionable students'.

So much of what is happening in the US today can be traced back to this history of ideas and their trajectory through time, returning or never having gone away. It's hugely impressive that Ratner-Rosenhagen has condensed so much information into a digestible narrative that doesn't feel superficial or simplistic. There is a bibliography for anyone wanting to explore any of these ideas in greater depth - for me, as a European reader, I found this enlightening... and sometimes jaw-dropping!

[G L · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to write a coherent account of 400 years of intellectual history in so short a book, but Ratner-Rosenhagen accomplishes this. I liked the way she offered several master narratives for understanding some major trends throughout our history. I liked less the fact that she focuses so heavily on religious/spiritual thought. This certainly is an important strand of American intellectual history, but there are others that I think are also very important, and that seem like they receive rather less attention than they merit. Anti-intellectualism, for instance. The serious work of conceptualizing a society built on merit and equality rather than hierarchy, which was a major intellectual project of the early republic, and has continued to shape the structure of society, politics, and economics (however far short the reality falls of the ideas).

The vast majority of the book focuses on post-1900. While I found this illuminating for the way it puts many developments I have witnessed, or heard about from my parents, into a bigger context, it is another area where I found the book to be somewhat unbalanced.

That said, as I understand the mission of these Oxford Very Short Introductions, the book does what it sets out to do: it offers a starting point for beginning to understand an immense and complex topic. My own sense of what was of balance doubtless reflects the era in which I received my historical training. I am not up on current scholarship. If I were, I might have different quibbles and areas of agreement.

I listened to the audio, which does not offer a bibliography or footnotes. I presume these are in the print edition. This was helpful enough that I plan to seek out the print edition to look for those.

[Michael Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick tour of the intellectual movements in America in 8 chapters.

1. Precontact to 1740, Empires: 1557 map already had America. Early colonists didn't belong to america & had no shared belief. But their diversity less than natives (who had 1-21K linguistic communities of 50-100 M ppl). Catholic focuses on deferring to clergy, while protestants on ability to read Bible. It was not a uncommon view that Natives were part of 10 lost tribes of Israel. Puritans were the first to develop a philosophy in early America. (But it’s problematic to interpret Puritan moral mission as America's as Regan mentioned shining city.)
2. 1741-1800 Enlightenment: Franklin created a series of institutions in Philly. Jefferson cut out parts of bible he found objectionable. Back then, the concept of republic is a radical one. But England’s Tea act in 1773 pushed them over the edge. And Thomas Paine’s “Common sense” awakened them.
3. From 1800-1850s, there’s an influx of Romantic ideas of ”Vaterland” (fatherland) that both vexed and energized American thinkers. Transcendentalists grew out of shared background of unitarianism, promoted a radiant divinity of self and American intellectual free from bullying of foreign thoughts.
4. 1850-1890: The publication of Darwin’s “Origin …” has dramatic effects. Some tie it to their religious view (e.g., “natural selection is intensely Calvinistic”) Others show men created gods. Some espouse social Darwinism and claim that social classes owe each other nothing. Others show uneven distribution is evolutionary maladaption.
5. 1890 - 1920: Alongside transcendentalism, pragmatism most important philosophical tradition in America. John Dewey (born in the year “Origin” was published) is the main proponent. The central tenet: get rid of dogma, replace with testing of concrete claims. Pragmatism led to progressivism, which hopes to deliberately alter social organization.
6. 1920-1945: War victory led to decadence. The lost generation (Hemingway, Eliot, Fitzgerald, etc) moved to Europe. Flowering of black intellectual production became known as Harlem Renaissance. FDR thought nothing short of “bold, persistent experimentation” could work to repair economy and recruited many intellectuals (later dubbed by New York Times as the ”Brain Trusts”). Later, massive immigration of German-speaking intellectuals fleeing Nazism led the direction of Institute of Fine Arts in NYU to declare Hitler as his “best friend”.
7. 1945-1970 opening of American mind. Cold War created pressure for smooth, sameness in American society. And conservatism was born out of frustration of liberal smugness. It stresses individualism over communitarianism, capitalism over any collectivism, hierarchy over egalitarianism, and caution over experimentalism. Many prominent thinkers came to believe that atrocities of 20th. C. were the result of modern spiritual disenchantment.
8. 1962-1990 against universalism: in 1962 a cluster of publication (on pesticide, poverty, capitalism (by Milton), and Kuhn’s scientific revolution) dismantled foundation of many old beliefs. Impart of post modernism rejects all binary oppositions and most vociferously objectivity vs subjectivity. All this led to Americans’ distrust of moral authority.

[Bernie Gourley]

This is a brief guide to the philosophies and major developments in United States' academia from pre-colonial times to the 1990's. But both of those end points require a bit of clarification. The discussion of pre-colonial scholarly history is largely a mea culpa for beginning with colonial history because Native American tribes weren't big on recording their philosophical and other scholastic ideas in writing. There is an appendix that discusses America scholarship in the era of globalization (and beyond.) My point is that if you're hoping for discussion of what's happened in the last couple decades, you won't find it herein. (There are a few bibliographic references from the 2010's, but that's it.) It is a history book, but some readers may be curious because there's been a lot of talk of late about issues related to scholarship in America.

Overall, I believe the book covered the topic solidly. There is considerable discussion of the debates triggered by the ideas of Charles Darwin arriving on American shores. As one would expect, there is also quite a bit of discussion of Transcendentalism and Pragmatism, two philosophies closely associated with America. The author covered a wide swath of ground including both progressive and conservative thinkers and viewpoints. One conspicuous absence was any mention of Objectivism / Ayn Rand. I know that isn't a popular topic in academic circles and is widely dismissed with contempt, but on the grounds of: a.) Objectivism's considerable influence (e.g. we had a Federal Reserve Chairman - Alan Greenspan - who served almost 20 years under both Republican and Democratic Presidents who was from that school of thought,) b.) its distinctive Americanness, I'm shocked that it didn't merit at least a sentence or any mention of a book in the bibliography.

All in all, it's an interesting book that offers unique insight into the history of the United States.