The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America

by Eric P. Kaufmann

As the 2000 census resoundingly demonstrated, the Anglo-Protestant ethnic core of the United States has all but dissolved. In a country founded and settled by their ancestors, British Protestants now make up less than a fifth of the population. This demographic shift has spawned a "culture war" within white America. While liberals seek to diversify society toward a cosmopolitan endpoint, some conservatives strive to maintain an American ethno-national identity. Eric Kaufmann traces the roots of this culture war from the rise of WASP America after the Revolution to its fall in the 1960s, when social institutions finally began to reflect the nation's ethnic composition. Kaufmann begins his account shortly after independence, when white Protestants with an Anglo-Saxon myth of descent established themselves as the dominant American ethnic group. But from the late 1890s to the 1930s, liberal and cosmopolitan ideological currents within white Anglo-Saxon Protestant America mounted a powerful challenge to WASP hegemony. This struggle against ethnic dominance was mounted not by subaltern immigrant groups but by Anglo-Saxon reformers, notably Jane Addams and John Dewey. It gathered social force by the 1920s, struggling against WASP dominance and achieving institutional breakthrough in the late 1960s, when America truly began to integrate ethnic minorities into mainstream culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, American, Sociology

384 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2004

Reviews

[Fred R · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most under-discussed issues in American history.

My theory is that in choosing empire (both in using immigration to fill up an entire continent and the 20th century trend towards global involvement, and, ultimately, dominance), but not a Cavalier Southern empire, the Anglo-Saxon founding ethnie of America found itself jettisoning its own ethnic identity.

[Oolalaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

16/20

[Ethan Norwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

His solution wouldn’t work

[Benjamin Colon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The decline of the Anglo-Saxon elites and the subsequent replacement by the J6ws has had steep consequences for what this nation has become and degenerated towards because this is not the nation my great grand parents came to, no, not by a long shot, I would rather have the Hohenzollerns or Roosevelts back than Bezos or Zuckerburg, we have fundamentally become a mentally ill and dysgenic nation that has led us towards apocalyptic levels of decline and we keep going down and it is heartbreaking that a nation hitherto full of hope has went to shit in less than 150 years.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant analysis of racial, cultural and religious trends throughout American history, though occasionally a bit plodding.