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De Amerikaanse Toekomst: Een Geschiedenis (2008)

by Simon Schama(Favorite Author)

3.73 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

9025429645 (ISBN13: 9789025429645)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Uitgeverij Contact

review 1: A curious title for what is a work of thematic history about America interspersed with passages of personal reminiscence, but Simon Schama’s book was written during the 2008 election, those days of surging hope when it seemed the US might reinvent itself instead of tightening harder into acrimoniously gridlocked incomprehension among its various racial, religious and ideological components. Seems a long time ago now. I suppose it was intended as an exploration of the past as a guide to the future, though its optimistic tone seems set at odds with much of the evidence it presents: anti-Chinese pogroms, the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and the continued presence of the psychopathic ethnic cleanser Andrew Jackson on the nation’s $20 bill, for instance. But not all: the first ... morepart of the book is largely devoted to the Meigs family, whose most illustrious member, Montgomery C., built the Capitol dome and brought potable water to Washington DC as well as acting as Quartermaster General for the Union as it out-organised the more tactically accomplished Confederacy to achieve victory in the Civil War. The second raises an important point about the constitutional separation of church and state: that it successfully and enduringly enables a culture in which (unlike Europe, where religion largely expired in the great upheaval of 1914-45) all shades of belief from wacko fundamentalism to militant atheism can sit sincerely side by side without one Talibanising the others, and that this enforced plurality gives America not just incredible appeal but enduring power and effectiveness. That is the side of the American story that it is hard to keep sight of when the political twilight descends, as it has again so frustratingly since 2008…
review 2: As with most things Simon Schama writes, it has a title and a subject but is always more about Schama himself than his subjects. Once you see past the academic egotism however you find a rich plethora of information on the history if the USA and how it pertains to the current national character. Brought out to coincide with the historic 2008 elections which Barack Obama would go on to win, this book traces the route of the modern America picking up heavily on the aspects of civil rights and slavery along the way. More a collection of essays than a narrative history it is sometimes difficult to keep track of and often focuses on the lesser known characters that played big parts in major events, such as the Meigs family, who really should be more widely known and appreciated.It is a very good read and I found it hard to put down after getting past the jumpy style. At times it reads quite closely like a puff piece from a Sunday magazine, particularly at the start, but there is a serious book trying to break through. Eventually it does in a sweeping sort of a way. It condenses huge moments in to personal storylines, perhaps showing a certain regret in the author that he isn’t more of a fictional writer.Simon Schama is an adopted American from Britain, to hear him speak is to hear leather on willow and the preparation of cream tea but he is a professor at Columbia University, NY, and a was a chair of Harvard by 1980. As a result of this deep personal connection with the US he is perhaps more scathing in places than other British historians would dare try to get away with, on race and immigration particularly, the latter form of xenophobia being nothing new in the “land of the free”. This all builds to the authors assumption however, that things are improving, as is demonstrated by the election of the current, black, president. When Schama gets on the subject of Obama he succumbs to the disease of fawning, favoured by ghost writers and political biographers and finds little criticism of the subject. Though this should be seen within the context of the time frame in which the book was written; at the dog end of Bush II’s presidency when someone like Obama must have shone like the Angel Gabriel himself. He name drops throughout the book and can be fairly accused of arrogance, but it is a good, solid book behind the heavy velour curtains. less

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