Behold, America

Starred review from August 27, 2018
Churchwell, a historian of modern American culture at the University of London, argues that the simple phrases “American dream” and “America first” have long and complicated histories and that their current meanings are quite different from those they held originally. At the turn of the 20th century, Churchwell explains, the popular conception of the “American dream” emphasized the communal pursuit of equality and justice rather than the individual drive for personal success. For progressive reformers, unfettered capitalism was a danger to these ideals. And when Woodrow Wilson spoke in 1916 of putting America first, it was to urge his countrymen to remain neutral in WWI so that the nation could help both sides at the conflict’s end. But the phrase was soon taken up by opponents of immigration and advocates of isolationism, who feared that the nation would be contaminated by contact with foreign elements; similarly, anxieties generated by communism and the Depression encouraged the reframing of the “American dream” as one of individual material progress. In clear and graceful prose, Churchwell shows that the triumph of these later ideas was far from inevitable; her book is a reminder that “we do not have to accept others’ narrow understanding of our meanings.” Agent: Peter Robinson Rogers, Coleridge & White.

September 1, 2018
Investigating two ubiquitous yet murky expressions--"America First" and the "American Dream"--through "a genealogy of national debates" that surround them.Churchwell (American Literature /Univ. of London; Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, 2013, etc.) introduces these ill-defined concepts and then uses broad historical research to demonstrate their intersections during portions of the last three centuries. Although the detailed narrative ends in 1941, the author offers an epilogue covering the years 1945 to 2017, mostly focused on Donald Trump and his associates. Churchwell demonstrates that when the concepts of the American dream and "America First" arose in the culture and the language of the U.S., those terms tended to signify the opposites of their meanings today. At any given moment, each term has been linked, for better or worse, to the American concepts of democracy, capitalism, and racial equality--or inequality, as the case may be. Churchwell acknowledges her preferred definitions, but she mostly avoids moral judgments in favor of pointing out shifting historical trends. So when Trump (or others) talk about "America First" or the American dream, their crabbed definitions may have different connotations than in previous decades. For example, "America First" has, at times, suggested isolationism from the remainder of the world, especially leading up to the world wars. At other times, it has suggested unthinking patriotism or even implied racism due to the desire for a whiter population. As for the American dream, Churchwell shows persuasively that, initially, it signified opposing the accumulation of wealth by capitalists, since business moguls rarely cared about the well-being of society as a whole. In 2018, however, it seems many Americans aspire to unabashed self-enrichment.Churchwell demonstrates a lively intellect, as she exhibited early in her publishing career with The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (2004). The only weakness of this book, which provides much food for thought, stems from generalizations about the way "most Americans" define the two key concepts. That knowledge is, of course, ultimately unknowable.

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October 1, 2018

Churchwell (literature, Univ. of London; The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe) adds another detailed volume to her growing collection of 20th-century American histories, here combing over the origins and transformations of two well-wrought concepts: "America First" and "The American Dream." The work begins in the latter 19th century, when various writers, politicians, and others speak of American dreams in highly diversified contexts. The American Dream, like "America First," narrowed in focus and purpose around the 1920s. Churchwell, a scholar of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his era, reveals the nationalism and nativism that flourished during the first decades of the 20th century. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan and American fascist parties during the 1920s and 1930s is particularly chilling. Readers will discover that nativists and social democrats have dueled against one another through long stretches of the 20th century. Many will learn that Trump-era "America First" concepts have deep roots. VERDICT Highly relevant to current U.S. politics, this is a great read for those seeking a scholarly examination of the origin and evolution of common and oft-cited American ideals.--Jeffrey Meyer, Mt. Pleasant P.L., IA

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