The Sum of Our Dreams

August 31, 2020
Rutgers University history professor Masur (Lincoln’s Last Speech) balances “the reprehensible and the redemptive” in this judicious single-volume history of the U.S. Taking the book’s title from a 2007 speech by Barack Obama on the plurality of “American dreams,” Masur pays close attention to the country’s record of violence and racial animus, as well as its democratic impulses and unprecedented economic opportunities. Moving chronologically, he devotes each chapter to a distinct time period, addressing five key events, trends, or issues within that era. The chapter on pre–Civil War America, for instance, includes sections on the Compromise of 1850, the “Bleeding Kansas” skirmishes between pro- and antislavery partisans, and abolitionist John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Masur also details lesser-known developments such as the conflicts between capital and labor during the Gilded Age, the development of post-WWII suburbia, and the “stagflation” of the 1970s. Throughout, his insights and succinct character sketches (on reformist Wisconsin governor Robert La Follette: “One of the most charismatic orators of the day, his full head of hair would whip from side to side and the veins in his neck popped as he denounced corporate power and political corruption”) give the book the feel of an excellent undergraduate survey course. American history buffs will savor this well-executed chronicle.

July 15, 2020
A levelheaded history of the U.S. framed on the pursuit of the American dream, however illusory it might now seem. At the dawn of the Great Depression, a banker-turned-historian concocted the phrase "the American Dream" to indicate the governing force of the Declaration of Independence's exaltation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "Whether that dream is obtainable, and how access to it has changed over time, is the central theme of American history," writes Masur, a scholar whose works have ranged from histories of the Civil War era to a book-length look at Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." The notion of equal opportunity is pretty much hard-wired into the American mind, though it's often found wanting in practice; in any event, it was long denied to various categories of human being, including those of African descent and Indigenous people. Justifications for this exclusion came in many ideological guises, from the insistence of the Confederate constitution that slavery was the natural order of things to the social Darwinism of the post-Civil War era, which "served to undergird such various ideas as laissez-faire capitalism, imperialism, and eugenics." (Masur ventures an intriguing connection between that dog-eat-dog belief system and the widespread popularity of boxing in the late 19th century.) The author's dissection of the American dream often turns to areas in which it did not hold, such as the Panic of 1893, "a worldwide economic crisis caused by a decline in commodity prices," and populist Wisconsin governor Robert La Follette's efforts to smash the Republican political machine that eventually crushed him. Money is now the determinant of the dream, Masur suggests, with deep-pocketed players such as the Koch brothers and the National Rifle Association holding the keys to government. Meanwhile, the dreams of others for social justice, equality, and "pursuing a better life," if often invoked, seem ever less attainable. A survey of our past that capably blends politics, popular culture, and social history into a coherent, readable whole.

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