Reading the 20th Century discussion

This is our thread to discuss readings in American History. We're starting with American History: A Very Short Introduction.

I am planning to move onto A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present. Others many want to read These Truths: A History of the United States or something different.

Feel free to join the discussion at any point - let's just be respectful of others' possibly differing opinions, as we always are.

I'm going to pick up my books from the library tomorrow but we haven't set a start and end date here so this thread will remain open.

I've got A Very Short Introduction and have learned something already from the preface: the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty, this is the ending:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,
Yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Started reading this on the tube and think it's excellent at summarising complicated history in a few words. I didn't realise the native population was so large (7-10 million) before America was 'discovered'.

And now I know what the Boston Tea Party was!

At the time Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus” (1883) was affixed to the Statue of Liberty in the 20th century it was controversial and not much has changed. As with most poems it will be interpreted differently by those who read them.

I remember the poem being quoted in the movie Since You Went Away by an immigrant woman to the Claudette Colbert character. It gives her the permission to let her elder daughter work as a candy striper (or whatever it was called during WWII and for her to go to work in a factory (a la Rosie the Riveter). It's a very moving scene.

Thanks both - I had to google 'candy striper' (while hoping it wasn't a mistyping for 'candy stripper') - thankfully not, and far more edifying!

I'm about halfway through this book now, have just reached the twentieth century and Theodore Roosevelt. This is a perfect 'road map' book to give the overview I wanted - I have lots of questions which, hopefully, Zinn will expand on.

A couple of takeaways: there's a palpable sense of excitement about Independence and setting up a new state which reminded me a bit of the start of both the French and especially Russian revolutions. I like the idea of there being a ferment of intellectual ideas that went into the Constitution. I've always had a soft spot for Tom Paine though it's his Rights of Man, his riposte to Edmund Burke's criticisms of the French Revolution that I have taught - just a shame he doesn't bother with the rights of women!

Also, it's fascinating to see the development of Congress, and the establishment of political parties. Ben had explained to me before that the Republican Party had been instrumental against slavery so it was good to see that expanded on here. I didn't realise that slavery was *the* main issue of the Civil War or that the Confederacy was an actual secession (sorry, I did warn I'm ignorant of US history!)

This book was published in 2012 but already you can see the author tracing trends that were having an impact in his present. This is certainly helping me make sense of some of what is going on in current US politics.

I see there's also American Intellectual History: A Very Short Introduction which I'd like to read, as I've been struck when discussing politics with US friends that we can sometimes be debating from very different traditions of political thought.

For several generations the Civil War was often taught as a battle over state’s rights compounded by the tension between the South’s agrarian economy and northern industrialization . The term (state’s rights” is often a coded way to justify racialized oppression, but it ostensibly (and in some cases legitimately) refers to the tension between the powers of the federal government and those that are reserved for individual states. Slavery was generally listed as a secondary cause. That’s the version I learned. (And a few of my Southern acquaintances grew up calling it the War of Northern Aggression.)

G wrote: "For several generations the Civil War was often taught as a battle over state’s rights"

That's part of the mix in that the narrative here is that slave states had fewer congressional members (because of slaves not counting as part of the state population count) and Southern politicians insisting that slavery be permitted when applying for statehood (e.g. Missouri). South Carolina's secession proclamation explicitly stated that they were leaving the Union because of a president 'hostile to slavery' (though Lincoln didn't want to get rid of slavery where it already existed, but didn't want to see it expanded).

So I think this is attentive to nuance for such a short book.

As for 'Northern Aggression', this book pitches it as Lincoln wanting to hold the Union together and making compromises to that end. It's certainly not hagiographical about Lincoln, and notes his suspension of habeas corpus, always a dangerous precedent.

I don't have anything to compare this against, of course, but it doesn't feel overly biased to me, despite the author's clear modern horror of slavery.

As usual i'm moving more slowly. My first comment is about the interaction between the Europeans and the native societies. RC mentioned the numbers of native Americans, and to me this is the fundamental fact. Initially they far outnumbered the Europeans, and in many cases the different "tribes" of Europeans, who came from different countries, were far outnumbered and out-resourced by the native Americans, who themselves were disunited. So different groups of Europeans allied the selves with different groups of native Americans against each other. Only in the late nineteenth century, with the United States acting as a unified entity, immigration swelling their numbers, and settlements moving west, were the native Americans fully conquered and subjugated. But initially, the native Americans could use the Europeans as allies against domestic enemies and against other competing Europeans.

Another interesting point is that much of the technology brought to the US by the Americans was adopted and acquired by the native Americans, such as horses and guns. I heard in The Rest of History for example that in some 19th century battles the US army faced an enemy with more weapons and more modern weapons than they had.

I'll continue my crawl through the book.

slaves were actually counted as 3/5 of a person in the state population count

RC, after having read a few chapters in addition to the preface I can agree that this is a decent introduction, so far. I was curious about the historian author and looked him up.
He was considered a “religion” historian. The detail on the religious leanings of the early exploring and settling cliques was what prompted knowing more. He grew up in a 3rd or 4th generation family of Mennonites and was against war and possibly horrified by nuclear war. What has me examining more now is how the altercations between the new arrivals and the natives could have been dealt with more diplomacy. Misunderstanding natives who could not speak their languages and in general appeared to be simpletons destined to be servants or laborers was inevitable I think. It certainly didn’t help that the natives (most) learned to consider the newcomers as dire enemies.
That part of history still simmers when some think it can be an effective tool to stir emotions and persuade.

Talking about the introduction of slavery into the British Colonies in North America, what was the situation with slavery in England in the 17th century? I know there was slavery in The Caribbean and in the Spanish parts of the Americas, but what about in the British Isles?

i’M interested in knowing about slavery in Europe too. I have read quite a lot of fiction depicting slave shipping during the 18th century. Human smuggling is sometimes mentioned.

My understanding is that there wasn't much direct import of slaves to the UK itself though, as you say, British colonies such as in the Caribbean were extensive slave-labour entities. UK mainland involvement was through the ports, the Navy, the various trade groupings and, of course, the huge amount of plantation wealth that came back to the UK which was used in infrastructure such as the big country houses and, later, in philanthropical institutions like the Tate etc.

Barbara wrote: "slaves were actually counted as 3/5 of a person in the state population count"

Ah yes, the book does explain that, it was me who forgot!

Ben wrote: "As usual i'm moving more slowly. My first comment is about the interaction between the Europeans and the native societies. RC mentioned the numbers of native Americans"

What is interesting to me about this is that sixteenth and seventeenth century writing plays up the idea of the 'New World' as a tabula rasa upon which European colonialists can built. America is portrayed as a second Eden, all ready for a new Golden Age.

John Donne, e.g., writes of 'O my America, my new found land / A kingdom safliest when with one man manned' when describing his mistress. And The Tempest draws on documents from the Jamestown settlement and a famous shipwreck off the coast of Virginia: 'O brave new world!' though we do have Caliban and Sycorax already there.

There's little sense of pre-existing and complicated societies. already existing there. From the preview of Zinn, he fills out this picture using the writings of Bartolomé de las Casas, a Jesuit priest who was horrified by the actions of his fellow Spaniards in relation to native Americans following Columbus.

One of the things I find poignant about those early encounters between native Americans and colonialists (and we see something similar in early writing about European colonialism in Africa) is that there is a fundamental clash of values: the native Americans seem to see land as something communal to be shared and cared for, the colonialists see it as possession that has to be valued and owned. This seems to be one of the bases upon which native societies are regarded as childlike, simplistic, and just ready to be exploited.

The description of America with streets of gold is a myth of course. People leaving Europe to explore were seeking fortune but some were escaping their previous problems, including imprisonment. The idea that Europe exported their unwanted criminals to the Colonies or to Australia is no surprise.

Ben wrote: "Talking about the introduction of slavery into the British Colonies in North America, what was the situation with slavery in England in the 17th century? I know there was slavery in The Caribbean a..."

To add to R. C.'s comments there was also a longstanding custom of British slave owners bringing favourite slaves to England and making them servants in their households. A few examples:

https://historicengland.org.uk/resear...

Also comes up in Zadie Smith's novel The Fraud iirc

Roman Clodia wrote: "One of the things I find poignant about those early encounters between native Americans and colonialists (and we see something similar in early writing about European colonialism in Africa) is that..."

Absolutely, also speaks to the links between the colonists and early forms of capitalism.

As an example the Boston Tea party was a a defense of free markets but also political and economic autonomy was a strong impetus when they destroyed the tea.

Alwynne wrote: "Absolutely, also speaks to the links between the colonists and early forms of capitalism."

Definitely - early explorations from England were done via joint stock companies such as the Company of Merchant Adventurers, the Muscovy Company and the East India Company. They were vehicles to raise capital on an investment risk & return basis.

Right from capitalism's advent, the owners of capital gained political power through having government ministers, royalty and other influential voices on their side.

An excellent book which looks at how these commercial interests worked against Britain's purported campaign to end slavery is Michael Taylor's recent The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery.

More generally, picking up Alwynne's points about Black servants, I can't recommend highly enough Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga. Because of the colonial relationship, they both discuss Britain's relationship with America in terms of slavery and broader race issues.

Susan_MG wrote: "As an example the Boston Tea party was a a defense of free markets but also political and economic autonomy was a strong impetus when they destroyed the tea."

I'm so pleased to now understand what that was about. Is it true or just myth that this is the reason Americans are more coffee than tea drinkers?!

This is the result of my AI question….i take all AI replies with a gran of salt.

Yes, early American colonists drank coffee, though it wasn’t as widespread as other beverages like tea or alcohol initially. Coffee arrived in the colonies in the late 17th century, with the first coffeehouses appearing in cities like Boston and New York by the 1680s. It gained popularity in the 18th century, especially after the Boston Tea Party in 1773, when drinking tea became politically charged. Coffee was seen as a patriotic alternative, and its consumption grew among colonists. However, it was often expensive and less common in rural areas, where homemade brews like herbal teas or cider dominated.

This is the second American authored book I've read this year that writes WW1 ended with Germany's surrender - is Armistice Day (November 11) not a thing in the US?

Armistice Day was re-named Veteran’s Day in 1954, somI think few Americans realize hostilities ceased with an armistice rather than a surrender. In fact, I learned about 15 years ago that the US military, at least, continued to be actively at war in some remote territories in the Asia-Pacific theater into the early 1920’s.

Isn't is fascinating how 'facts' differ according to different metrics? Here US vs. European understandings of the end of WW1.

I'm interested to read the brief stories of the different US presidents who have tended to blur in my head (sorry!)

Yes, I was also amazed when about 10 years ago, amid all the writings about the First World War, that fighting continued in many, many places after the armistice and the Versailles Treaty. Turkey, the Soviet Union, turmoil within the defeated powers and the Middle East were just a few areas where fighting unleashed by the European wars and the consequent dismantling of empires continued.

The Armistice was an end to fighting on the western Front, but that's all.

Alwynne wrote: "To add to R. C.'s comments there was also a longstanding custom of British slave owners bringing favourite slaves to England and making them servants in their households..."

Thanks for the link.I want to look into this, and what restrictions existed, if any, on ownership of people within the UK and when it became illegal or unacceptable.

I do love History, and how one investigation leads to another.

Ben wrote: "Turkey, the Soviet Union, turmoil within the defeated powers and the Middle East were just a few areas where fighting unleashed by the European wars and the consequent dismantling of empires continued."

Is unleashed the key here? Presumably some of that fighting was in response to the Russian Revolution (we hear in this book of some American involvement with the White Russian forces), the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and so on? But I agree that it's misleading to assume that the Armistice somehow was a blanket peace to Europe and beyond.

Ben wrote: "... and what restrictions existed, if any, on ownership of people within the UK and when it became illegal or unacceptable."

I'd love to hear more about what you find. My simplistic understanding has been that chattel slavery involves ownership that denies the slave personhood; and that being a 'servant' was essentially a contractual relationship based on the transaction of salary for service. But I'm sure there were fuzzy grey areas in between.

I immediately think about the status of women who were, at various points in history and differing cultures, denied citizenship, had no legal standing, were legally under the control of a male relative (father, husband, brother, son), could be legally beaten (the 'rule of thumb' meant they could be beaten as long as the implement wasn't thicker than a thumb!), raped etc. - yet were neither necessarily slaves nor servants.

I'm at FDR's New Deal and the run-up to WW2. Discussion about a 'peace movement' has come up and I'm wondering about the way this might be a way of covering up American political isolationism - and what's the difference between the two?

I'm reading Virginia Woolf's letters at the moment where a lot of the Bloomsberries were conscientious objectors during WW1 but were still involved in national and international politics and political thought.

A couple of other illuminating moments:

- a 1925 law case about Tennessee forbidding the teaching of Darwinism in public schools as it contradicted the bible.

- That the KKK were a fundamentalist Protestant group who targeted Catholics as well as Black people and 'people of loose morals'.

Roman Clodia wrote: "I'd love to hear more about what you find. "

I will let you know. Important parallel between treatment of women, married and unmarried, and slaves. And also a philosophical/spiritual/legal/cultural question of what it means to have or be denied "personhood"

Roman Clodia wrote: "Discussion about a 'peace movement' has come up and I'm wondering about the way this might be a way of covering up American political isolationism..."

And the relationship between this and the various peace/disarmament pacts of the 1920's.

Two important sentences in the first chapter. (I know, I'm moving slowly.)

Further to my first point, "The war’s North American phase involved French and British troops, colonial militias, and each side’s Indian allies.". The Europeans were the rising power, as we know now, but in the 18th century was it as obvious that they would control the Americas?


And the importance of external threats and taxation as factors that determined the relationship between the colonies and the mother country. "With the French threat removed, British rule seemed increasingly onerous. Relations worsened as the British government, by the Proclamation of 1763, restricted colonists’ westward expansion, reserving the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi to the Indian inhabitants. Religious fears exacerbated the colonists’ anger, since Britain granted full religious freedom to the thousands of French Catholics in its newly acquired territories. Further, Parliament sought to pay off its heavy war debt by increasing colonial taxes."

Two issues that were not taught in my school studies of the American Revolution.

Compare the importance of "independence and self-determination," on the one hand, and "tax revolt" as factors motivating and sustaining the "revolution". I don't know how much it will be discussed in this book, but the tax revolts continued against the new US federal government at least until the end of the 18th century, and some had to be put down by force, while others were resolved by limiting the powers of the federal government.

To what extent was the support of France, Spain and Germany crucial to the success of the "revolution"? "Above all, Britain’s European rivals, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, provided critical strategic support."

Ben wrote: "And also a philosophical/spiritual/legal/cultural question of what it means to have or be denied "personhood"

Maybe not exactly the same thing, but I used to teach on a course called 'Production of the Human' which looked at the way various disciplines, intellectual and cultural theories, and political/social regimes across history have created categories that serve to include/exclude people as 'human'.

You've got me wondering now about that relationship between being recognized as fully human and the concept of personhood.

Ben wrote: "Above all, Britain’s European rivals, France, Spain, and the Netherlands, provided critical strategic support.""

French intellectual support in the run-up to their own Revolution was certainly important too - which brings us back to Tom Paine!

The first five chapters from 1492-1900 are better than the final four. Once we hit the C20th, this becomes little more than a tick-list of issues strung together with slick commentary. It's still skillful to compress so much this way but maybe because I'm familiar with this time period it's like a set of reminders to me. It goes up to Obama.

I wish 1900-forward had been a separate book, and we'd had more on the earlier period.

I am through the Civil War and while I praise the attempt, I don't feel the little survey, gives one much more of an idea of the history than had one not read it. One problem is that in trying to order and encapsulate events, the history tends to homogenize peoples and ideas too much, where I think the reader can get false ideas. This history is more progressive than the history I was taught through my younger years of school and the more progressive slant did not begin to enter my classroom teachings till late 1960's/early 1970's. I find some value and faults in both the traditional approach and the progressive reaction, but it wasn't until I came across a course teaching the various philosophies of history that I began to appreciate that one benefits from multiple perspectives.

Sam wrote: "I don't feel the little survey, gives one much more of an idea of the history than had one not read it."

Depends on one's starting point, though! I learned a lot because I'm really not exaggerating when I say I know little of American history before the twentieth century.

I can completely understand your perspective as an American though. That was closer to my feeling about the twentieth century chapters.

Could you say a bit more about why you think it's more progressive than the history you were first taught?

I'm not expecting very much from the book, as it is WAY too short to cover anything in depth, but it and this thread interest me as jumping off points to identify and discuss issues in American history.

Ben wrote: "I'm not expecting very much from the book, as it is WAY too short to cover anything in depth, but it and this thread interest me as jumping off points to identify and discuss issues in American history"

Exactly my thoughts too - and it's whet my appetite for Zinn.

Roman Clodia wrote: "Sam wrote: "I don't feel the little survey, gives one much more of an idea of the history than had one not read it."

Depends on one's starting point, though! I learned a lot because I'm really not..."

First, I'm not sure Progressive is the right term because my early teachings fo history also had a progressive part. The history was more hagiographic with events unfolding in a way that made things better than they had been previously. For example, the evils of slavery were not dwelled upon. Instead we were taught that the American Civil War resulted in the end of the practice, which would be called progress. Manifest Destiny was considered a positive inevitability. Leaders were discussed in relation to the good they achieved. So Lincoln was taught as the president who kept the Union together rather than the president whose election triggered the Civil War. Everything was seen as leading to a better future. When I used the term Progressive in relation to the type of history the author of this book is presenting, I am referring to a history that corrects some of the concepts told by the earlier history in pointing out the horrible truths about slavery or the ill treatment of indigenous Americans. The problem I see with that "progressive' history is that sometimes the corrections are too much the focus at the expense of other factors. Hence we get the slavery as a cause of the ACW. That is true but fails to account for why slavery became so desirous and thus entrenched in the American South to be begin with. The answer lies in the way the south was colonized and to whom was granted land combined with the agrarian economic dependence that relied on labor intensive crops creating a perfect storm for the flourishing of a slave labor force.

Sam wrote: "The history was more hagiographic with events unfolding in a way that made things better than they had been previously."

Thanks, that makes sense. I had a slight feeling of that at the end of this book where the conclusion is more or less that America has not been perfect but that overall it's done more good than bad in the world.

Which itself felt very American to me! I mean, all counties have their chequered histories and complicated pasts.

I've finished and here's my review:

www.goodreads.com/review/show/7812586591

I finished this over the weekend and one thing that really stood out as I read into the 20th and 21st century was how much of the book consisted of news stories of the moment, sometimes culled in a way that they reflected what might be the history studied 100 years from now and at other times, not. Those other times seemed like just the memes of the moment and I wonder whether they will have much role in the history that will be written. The problem becomes of much greater importance in the 21st century when standardized media has pretty much disappeared and what we have is a number of competing profit driven news sources that offer different and often contradicting news perspectives. With standardized reporting the role of the historian was to fact check, dig deeper, find narratives, link threads, and make coherent assertions. Today, I find the above much harder and the turnaround in headline stories far quicker, so that one never really feels they know what is actually happening. The history that is generated from analysis over time seems more threatened by a variety of factors, not just those I mentioned, to a degree that one wonders what is going to be the future result.

Sam wrote: "one thing that really stood out as I read into the 20th and 21st century was how much of the book consisted of news stories of the moment"

I also had that sense of the book thinking about the past through the lens of 2012 when it was published. I didn't have a problem with that (reception theory, though not a framework for history as much as literature, tells us we always reads from our own horizons) but I did question the imbalance of the first 400 years to 1900 getting five chapters and the final 100 years getting four chapters.

I guess newspapers have always been biased sources and I don't know how much weight they offer to the writing of history but I do know what you mean about the fragments we're leaving to the future without letters, diaries etc.