George Washington said that America's future depends on the unity
of its people and, casting a transatlantic eye upon the undignified
presidential spat in Florida, one cannot help but note how fragile
that unity may indeed be. McElroy's book is billed as an antidote
to past examinations of divisions in US society, and embarks on an
explicit mission to identify deep-seated values that unify this
vast, dynamic and diverse nation. But lurking beneath its surface
is a thinly veiled nervousness about 'cultural decline' that seeks
to revive values eroded by excessive liberalism: the author
bemoans, for example, how the idea of multiculturalism has
displaced 'American national culture'. In this sense, this book
becomes and important artefact, a resuscitation of the studies in
'national character' once proclaimed extinct. McElroy traces with
skill the erudition and evolution of such recognizable American
beliefs as the uncompromising work ethic, visionary enterprise,
individual responsibility and a genuine popular sovereignity. He
devotes considerable effort to arguing for the differences between
American and imported English values and the former's separate,
almost timeless, evolution derived as if from the very landscape
itself. He also examines the residual belief in America as a chosen
land with a civilizing mission sanctioned by God. Such ideas recur
in cultural nationalism the world over. This book will prove
valuable, and often provocative, to readers interested in US
perpectives on its own culture at the dawn of the 21st century.
(Kirkus UK)
Why do so many different people with widely dissimilar ideas and
customs get along as Americans? In American Beliefs, John McElroy
identifies and explains those essential ideas that promote the
unity of a vast nation and a diversified people because they have
been shared and acted upon by generations of Americans. Tracing
these beliefs historically from their origins in the earliest
experiences of the American colonists, Mr. McElroy shows how they
became continuing convictions that together form a pattern distinct
from those of other peoples. Work, he argues, shaped the primary
beliefs of Americans, for the task of the early settlers was first
of all to survive in a new wilderness. He then goes on to discuss
beliefs that grew from the experiences of immigrants, from life on
the frontier, and from the ideas that Americans developed about
religion and morality, politics, human nature, and the workings of
society. It is not birthplace or skin color that makes a person an
American, Mr. McElroy observes, but a common behavior based upon
principles of freedom and equality, individuality and
responsibility, improvement and practicality. American Beliefs is a
book greatly needed, a powerful antidote to decades of historical
and political writings that have concentrated on the differences
among Americans.
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