Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America

by Eric Rauchway

In a mere fifty years, the United States transformed itself from a second-tier country crippled by its effort to abolish the appalling institution of human slavery into a great power unlike any the world had ever seen. The question of how it did this should command our attention all by itself, but the question of why it became such a peculiar—and incompetent—empire surely ranks as one of the great questions of modern history. For truly, measured by consequences, few global disasters can match the mismanagement of the international system in the 1920s, which owed almost entirely to bad decisions made in America. All that saves the United States from complete responsibility is the answer to the first question, of how this change happened so America became a great power so swiftly, and became such a peculiar empire, because the rest of the world made it that way.

Globalization does not always level the world’s playing field. It produces winners, losers, and, on occasion, global economic disasters. As Eric Rauchway compellingly shows, no nation so clearly reflects the effects of globalization’s uneven influence than the United States. A historian’s answer to the rosier predictions of journalists, Blessed Among Nations is a sharply narrated reminder that we need merely to review the decades between the end of the Civil War and the aftermath of World War I—the first era of globalization—to realize that one nation’s enrichment need not benefit the whole world.

An incisive explanation of why America has inspired more envy than imitation, Blessed Among Nations warns that if we do not better understand how the United States failed, early on, to master the forces that made it what it is, we stand to make the same mistakes again, in a world with even higher stakes.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Academic, The United States Of America, American History

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Eric Rauchway is an American historian and professor at the University of California, Davis. Rauchway's scholarship focuses on modern US political, social and economic history, particularly the Progressive Era and the New Deal.

Reviews

[Russell Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating argument about American history, one which on every page I found myself wishing I knew more about 19th-century American history and economics and foreign policy, so as to be able to better assess what were, to me, very eye-opening conclusions. In a nutshell, Rauchway argues that, under the protective umbrella of "Anglobilization" (that is, the first wave of industrial globalization in business, trade, immigration, and financial investment which the military and economic power of the British empire made possible) the United States developed into an imperial superpower--only its path to that end was so unlike the path followed by other industrializing imperial powers (Great Britain most obviously, but also France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, etc.), that it and other countries didn't realize its own power, until with the arrival of World War I the U.S. suddenly emerged as the dominant power on the globe, and then promptly didn't know what to do with the power and turned away from it, until World War II thirty years later made it unavoidable that the U.S. own up to the kind of military and economic might it wielded worldwide. In the midst of making this argument, Rauchway throws a tremendous amount of surprising data at the reader. For example, that foreign investment in America's railways was such a good deal that railroad magnates were able to amass enormous control over the American West with, in comparison to Canada, relatively little assistance from the American government. And that, because of that lack of involvement, foreign investors primarily made use of local banks or did business directly with the corporate bosses themselves, leading to the development of a financial infrastructure far less coordinated and far less subject to national directives than was the case in other industrialized nations. And furthermore, this very decentralization affected the way the U.S. dealt with moving new immigrants into the "internal empire" it conquered, and how local governments in turn responded to those waves of immigration, and made demands upon the U.S. military in response. Anyway, a fascinating and unconventional (for me, anyway) tour of American history. And incidentally, a very well-written and readable scholarly text as well.

[Eugene Kernes · Rating 4 out of 5]

America seems to have come out of nowhere at the end the WWII wielding global influence and power. Rauchway shows how globalization, other countries influenced the rise of America and its policies. An early history of America thought the lens of globalization, showing many policies which worked at one time but not at other times. Other nations impact on American’s capital, labor, and welfare are the most direct. One of the best examples how America is different can be expressed in the way America leads. Usually, top nations try to spread their institutions elsewhere while America seems unable to have other follow its institutions.

Capital in this book is represented as money inflows, such as investments being made in the country. America seems to always return to investors favored place due to its relative safety among other countries. The investments being made into the country, rather than being directed by the government, were channeled through private institutions. Many of these investments fail, both private and public, and many times the securities were not repaid due to discrimination. Even with all the problems with American securities, they ended up being favored internationally.

Immigrants went to America for the potential higher income raise. Even though unions saw the exploitation of immigrants, the immigrants themselves did not mind because they were already receiving higher wages then they could receive elsewhere. Employers like the immigrant cultural diversity as that weakened unionization efforts. An interesting historical irony is that immigrants used to take jobs away from Americans in America, while now jobs are being send abroad.

Unemployment created by industrial economies normal operations had the impetus to create policies for various relief efforts. As hygiene became a bigger problem due to congestion, many states began spending more money on providing facilities to clean the population. Other states and cities noticed that immigrants who work in their cities could be carrying diseases with them making hygiene policies investments more demanding.

There are a few problems with the book such as the short supply of comparisons made with other countries. The book tries to show how America is different from other countries, but rarely provides how they are different. Usually, it is just American history from an internal perspective and sometimes a minor understanding of how other countries handled the particular national problems differently. Another problem regards the theoretical issue of the book. The author takes a more classical economics framework, mostly that of Marx, but applies neoclassical meanings. This creates some confusion such a using capital as a reference to money and time, which is neoclassical, and applying it to Marx’s theories.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eric Rauchway argues that "the world made America". "Nineteenth-century globalization made America exceptional. On the back of European money and immigration, America became an empire with considerable skill at conquest but little experience administering other people's -- or its own -- affairs, which it preferred to leave to the energies of private enterprise." (back cover)

The parts of his piece do not add up to a robust whole. Nevertheless, the analysis of capital and labor flows in early chapters is useful and well done and provides a nice example of how a focus on the material can be illuminating. He shows how the flows of labor and capital provide represented the inputs that shaped policy outputs.

[Andrew Canfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a brisk walk-through the development of America from the frontier days until essentially the end of World War One.

Rauchway makes the argument that the way the United States's development caused it to differ from that of so many other industrial democracies wasn't so much the worth of the policies enacted but instead the unique circumstances which spawned them. On issues like immigration, social spending, and military policy, Rauchway looks at the way America's unique position in the world-formerly more so than today-insulated it from many considerations other countries had to take into account and shielded in from many of the consequences of its actions (that is, until world war or depression broke out).

Factors like a more ethnically diverse population (which prevented union activity from being as salient as it was in other nations with more homogeneous populations) and an electoral system which gives disproportionate voice to rural constituencies (which caused a different critique of capitalism that took place in more dense nations with less room to grow within their own borders) and an aversion to large, standing militaries were a few factors pinpointed which causes America to have a diverging development from other countries.

It could have delved more into depth than it did, but the book does a fairly nice job of making Rauchway's thesis believable to the reader. It didn't so much convince me of anything as cause me to pause and consider the ways America's unique development of policies and institutions were a result of time and place--a case which could have been made for numerous countries throughout the history of the world.

-Andrew Canfield, Shreveport, Louisiana

[Amanda Rabon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this took me back to my History 102 seminar with Rauchway: you learn a lot, it's very intellectual and every now and then he throws in a word like "willy-nilly" and makes you laugh. Enjoyed the class and enjoyed the book.

[Stephen Winchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another solid history book. I'd suggest it to serious readers looking for an interesting and enlightening non-fiction historical survey.