"The Americans" by Hugo Munsterberg stands alongside Alexis de
Tocqueville's "American Democracy" as one of the great works on the
New World written by a scholar deeply familiar with the Old World.
When originally published, it gave the German public a sense of
American life, and was described as "a book which deals in a
detailed way with the political, economic, intellectual, and social
aspects of American culture." Munsterberg, a world-renowned
psychologist at the turn of the twentieth century, noted that "its
purpose is to interpret systematically the democratic ideals of
America."
The primary aim of "The Americans" is to study the people and
America's inner tendencies. It offers a "philosophy of
Americanism," the ideology of a people writ whole. Munsterberg's
sense of the "spirit" of a people, rather than facts about the
people, is revealed in his four cardinal chapters: Self-Direction,
Self-Realization, Self-Perfection, and Self-Assertion. While he
covers the economic premises of the free market and the politics of
party affairs, he considers these the least important. Instead it
is the lasting forces and tendencies of American life, rather than
problems of the day, that occupy the author. This focus was shared
by German readers, for whom the book was conceived, and for those
in the United States who read the book in English.
The dynamic of strong basic tendencies of democratic forces and
lesser, but significant, aristocratic tendencies underwrites the
strains and tensions in American society. It also defines the
special nature of a book, written more than one hundred years ago,
that retains its lively sense of purpose and deep insight into
American life. One could well say that this book is required
reading in this day and age for Americans and Europeans alike. This
is a neglected masterpiece.
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