America has long been famous as a land of plenty, but we seldom realize how much the American people are a "people of plenty"--a people whose distinctive character has been shaped by economic abundance. In this important book, David M. Potter breaks new ground both in the study of this phenomenon and in his approach to the question of national character. He brings a fresh historical perspective to bear on the vital work done in this field by anthropologists, social psychologists, and psychoanalysts.
"The rejection of hindsight, with the insistence on trying to see events from the point of view of the participants, was a governing theme with Potter. . . . This sounds like a truism. Watching him apply it however, is a revelation."--Walter Clemons, "Newsweek "
"The best short book on national character I have seen . . . broadly based, closely reasoned, and lucidly written."--Karl W. Deutsch, " Yale Review
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Originally published in 1942, this perceptive and impartial analysis of one of the most baffling periods in American history - the months between the election of Lincoln and the fall of Fort Sumter - was a bold declaration of intellectual independence. David M. Potter revolted against the prevailing southern argument that Lincoln deliberately provoked the South into war to bring a violent end to slavery, arguing instead that the new president followed the least aggressive course available to him in dealing with the secession crisis. Based on a painstaking examination of the writings and statements of both the northern principal players in the crisis and other, lesser-known Repubulicans who revealed the sentiment of the party's rank and file, this groundbreaking study details the Republicans' attitudes to the threat of secession, their reaction to the actual withdrawal of the southern states, and their faith that the Union could be restored without violence. Daniel W. Crofts provides a new Introduction, setting Potter's account in the context of contemporary literature.