This is a very long book. Almost 1000 pages, to be more specific. Fortunately, it's also a very good book.
It's taken me about two months to read this, so it feels as though I've been reading it since my early childhood, but I'm glad I pushed through it. Johnson is a masterful writer, and he takes the reader on a journey to discover the origins and identity of the people who call themselves Americans. I should note that this is not a history of the United States as a nation but of the American people as a national identity. Johnson is telling a story about how the people who settled the vast wilderness of the New World (or part of it, at least) became American, and how they developed into a unique nation. And he does it very well. I'm not generally a fan of any kind of American history, but Johnson made me proud to be a citizen of the United States. Americans aren't perfect, but they have significant qualities that have helped them build a strong and impressive nation. Despite the problems that America has today, Americans still have reason to honor their history and their nationality.
What made this book so interesting to me is that Johnson is not actually American. (He's British.) This means that he can approach American history from an entirely different point of view than most Americans. He's not limited by regional loyalties or specific partisan preferences (although he definitely has a clear opinion in the liberal/conservative debate -- more on that later). Were I to write a book of this magnitude, my Texas and Southern loyalties would be impossible for me to hide. No matter how objective I try to be, I'm still partial to my background and my regional identity. And I know that the majority of American-born writers would be the same way in writing a history such as this. But Johnson can distance himself from the sectional debate and offer a fresh perspective on the differences between the people living in various regions of the United States.
Johnson starts at the very beginning, taking the reader back to the days before the first settlers arrived in Virginia and New England and considering the history of Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. By the time he arrives at early settlements in America, the reader has a fairly good context for the arrival of colonists and the distinctions among the colonies that would be established. All of this was particularly fascinating for me; even though I was distantly aware of the differences, I never stopped to think about how diverse America was even from its earliest days. Yes, the settlers were almost exclusively European (and, even more specifically, Northern European), but there was no point in American history when Americans have actually been homogeneous in their approach to, well, being American. More importantly, Americans were making many of the same mistakes in their early days that they're still making today. I get tired of people lamenting the fact that America used to be something it never really was. This isn't to say that there hasn't been a disintegration of morality and traditional values in recent years: without question, there has been. But a close look at the development of the American people indicates a complex and often checkered history of mistakes, problems, biases, moral contradictions, and differences that created emotionally-fueled divisions. After all, Americans are still human, and Mayberry never really existed, nor did Norman Rockwell tell the whole story.
On the issue of objectivity, I do feel the need to point out that Johnson doesn't exactly meet the criteria for being an objective historian. On the other hand, I tend to sit on the same side of the aisle as he does, so this didn't bother me too much. I purchased my copy of this book used, and it turns out that the previous owner had some different opinions. (To be rather snarky, there's an inscription in the front of the book that reads, "From Dick, Christmas 2000." After reading a few of the remarks in the margin, I grew to be of the opinion that the recipient of the book should also have gone by that name.) Some of the comments from the previous owner irritated me, so rather than leaving them for posterity, I simply erased them or scratched them out.
Frankly, it was nice to read a historical survey that -- for lack of a better description -- ripped people like FDR and JFK a new one. This is probably where Johnson fails the most in being an unbiased historian (and relies a bit too heavily on opinion and personal ideology), but again I agreed with him, and in his defense he does take the time to support his claims with research. And it was really nice to see an expanded perspective on figures who have received short historical shrift or have been vilified in the media: Harding, Coolidge, Truman, and even Nixon. None of these men was perfect, but most of them have not been given the historical credit for their accomplishments. In terms of presidential histories, my only complaint is that Johnson kisses Lincoln's feet too much...but I guess we can't have everything.
But even if this book was a complete failure (and it's not), I'll credit Johnson with a one-liner that sums up most of the problems today with America and its relationship with the media: in describing the rebellion against authority that the media encouraged during the 1960s, Johnson says, "The media was teaching the American people to hate their chief executive precisely because he took executive decisions." Very well put, although I'm surprised the charming previous owner of the book didn't feel the need to comment on this as well. During the recent presidential election, a liberal friend of mine who works in journalism made the jaw-dropping remark that there's no liberal bias in the media. And denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
All things considered, this is probably a pretty lousy review that doesn't do much to recommend this book -- even though I do recommend it. Heartily. Johnson does sprinkle his writing (and especially his descriptions of the 20th century) with a good dose of personal opinion, but even in this he provides a wonderful history of the American people and a fairly reliable one. And by the end of the book, Johnson has managed to shape a sound image of the American people that does not reduce American nationality to a single background or origin but does exactly what America was intended to do: combine all of the idiosyncrasies of personal histories and regional distinctions in a "melting pot" with the emerging picture of Americans as one of a strong, enthusiastic, patriotic (though not blindly), complex, and admirable people.
Year of publication: 1997
Number of pages (exclusive of sources and index): 976
Description:
