With keen insight and an impeccable sense of the spirit of the times, Brands, one of today's preeminent historians, captures the American experience through the last six decades. He chronicles politics, pop culture, and everything in between.
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With keen insight and an impeccable sense of the spirit of the times, Brands, one of today's preeminent historians, captures the American experience through the last six decades. He chronicles politics, pop culture, and everything in between.
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H.W. Brands of the University of Texas is a prolific historian with a knack for writing popular yet valuable narrative accounts of eras in American history. What his work lacks in analytical depth is compensated for in its lucidity, balance, and generally good judgment. Brandt provides a good overview of his subjects which encourages readers to go further, if they wish.
I read Brands' most recent book, "American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900" which covers the United States "Gilded Age" from 1865 -- 1900. I then read this book of Brands', "American Dreams: The United States since 1945" (2010) which covers an era much closer to home. It came as a surprise to realize that the time frame of this latter book, 1945 -- 2009, already considerably exceeds the 35-year time period covered in "American Colossus". I tend to read more 18th and 19th that 20th Century American history. In part this is due to personal interest and it part it is due to a sense that it is difficult to get a sense of detachment to understand a modern period and to reduce bias. I have been alive for most (not all) of the time period Brands discusses and have memories of much of the era. For baby boomers such as myself, the book is looking back on one's life, both on what was remembered and what was missed. I found reading "American Dreams" fascinating but often painful.
Brands' title recalls a seminal moment of the era, Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech on the National Mall on August 28, 1963. Brands of course pays appropriately close attention to Dr. King's speech (pp 113- 114).
Brands, I think, writes about two types of American dreams: collective dreams for a people and the dreams of individual persons for attaining a happy and fulfilling life for themselves. Dr. King's speech, and other rare events, seemed for a moment to fold the personal and the collective into one. If I understand Brands correctly, he sees the tenor of the period he discusses as moving from a collective dream of American nationalism and purpose to disillusionment with and question about a national vision. But also during this time, individual dreams have become stronger and more realizable. This seems to me, and I think to Brands, unfortunate because people have become more rootless, fragmented, and separated from each other and from a larger community than was the case at the end of WW II. But there is grounds for hope as Americans continue to strive on. The hope would be that in addition to dreams of personal fulfillment and success, as individuals define them, that Americans recover something of a collective dream and vision.
Brands' book is in three parts. Part I, "Visions of Omnipotence" discusses the United States between 1945 -- 1965, beginning with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, proceeding through the origins of the Cold War and the rise of the American middle class, and concluding with the Civil Rights Legislation of 1965 under President Johnson. In itself, this is an extraordinary sum of material to cover, but Brands taught me a great deal.
Part II of the book, "The Twilight of Liberalism" covers the years 1965 -- 1986 beginning with the Great Society and continuing with the still-raw subject of the War in Vietnam. Brands covers and ties these subjects together with Watergate, detente, the pardon of Nixon, and the presidencies of Ford, Carter, and most of Reagan. I thought he did well in a short space in relating domestic and foreign issues and in showing the mostly negative effect of the events he discusses on the national moods of Americans.
Part III "Silicon Schemes and Global Connections" covers 1987 -- 2010 and is, unsurprisingly, the sketchiest section of the book. It begins with the end of the Soviet Union and proceeds to the first war with Iraq under president G.H.W. Bush who is treated with substantial respect. Brands describes the successes and failures of the Clinton years, including including the budget fights and government shutdowns, and the impeachment trial. The discussion of the second Bush presidency focuses on the still fresh memories of September 11,on the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the near-depression. The account of Obama is understandably brief and includes only the bail-out efforts of the first months of his administration. This final part of the book also examines the radical changes in communication technology wrought by the Internet, the cellphone, and other devices and their impact on American life.
Brands makes an effort to be fair and even-handed in his presentation and conclusions. I did not find his book a partisan or ideologically-driven account. It was valuable if not always edifying to be reminded of the time in which I have lived and to think of what I or the United States might have done differently. The book encouraged me to think about how our country might regain a collective dream and sense of purpose for itself.
