I started listening to a podcast about the Civil War. At first, I was a little disappointed, because the course wasn't about the entire conflict, but instead the closing month--April 1865, to be exact. I thought of letting it go and exploring something else instead, but I soldiered on, listening to the first of the fourteen episodes.
Immediately, I was confronted with a new reality.
Unless you've not read much of my work, you probably already know that my strongest historical areas are the sweet-spot of British history: the Renaissance. History that touches Shakespeare--anything of the British Isles, including his Richard II and onward--is something that I really enjoy. I even have a greater interest in Roman history because of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar than I would for any other reason. After Shakespeare died, the poetic torch was passed to John Milton, which means that my interest goes pretty much from Richard II to James II. That's my favorite--nay, I should say, favourite--time to study.
I study other parts of history, too, but it is always in connection to the courses I teach. However, when it comes to American history, I remain aloof. It isn't that I don't like American history, but I feel a little too conflicted about the different ways of looking at our own patched past. There's a political and nationalistic and patriotic lens that is hard to shake off, and sometimes, I don't want to shake it off. It's hard to be challenged about American history--and it's hard to come to grips with, too. While I don't mind a challenge, I always feel...uncomfortable talking about American history. It's a strange feeling, one that probably needs more analysis than what I'm giving here.
However, since I know that I'm deficient in this particular area, I decided to pick up the aforementioned podcast. And, as I said, the first lecture really surprised me. It revolved around how disparate the country was when it was founded. Indeed, this professor, Jay Winik, makes the argument that we weren't a nation until after the Civil War.
That really gave me pause. What did he mean? As he continued to explain his position, a lot of what I've unconsciously wondered at became clear. For example, the passion with which the South defended the institution of slavery was a puzzle. I mean, racism, obviously. And there's no hint of trying to pass off the Civil War as anything but being about the slave question in the podcast, so it was a relief that the professor wasn't going to try to dismiss the sin of slavery behind handwaving of "states' rights!" No, slavery was absolutely the root cause of the war. However, the conception of America--of what the country was--had yet to become understood. The world they inhabited looked at things so differently from how we do now that it's no longer a surprise that slavery was a hill they were--both metaphorically and literally--willing to die on.
The people, according to Winik, were so different from east to west and north to south that it's actually better to consider the thirteen colonies as a replication of northern Europe. The largest difference was the language was, basically, the same. Think of how disparate Prussia was from Denmark, France from Spain, Belgium from Italy during the mid-1800s. That is how those who lived in New York felt about Georgians, or folks from Massachusetts did about Rhode Island. The common goal of a nation, as opposed to a country, had not become part of the American sense.
Indeed, this was so pervasive that, despite the fact that they all spoke English, how they spoke of themselves was different. "The United States are..." was how the sentence was formulated. It wasn't until after the Civil War that they started saying "The United States is..." The difference is small linguistically, but enormous in meaning. The mutual desire for progress, the hope for balance, satisfaction, and "going the right direction" became more tangible through this sort of verbal maneuvering. Despite the atrocity of the Civil War, America bound itself together--through a long, painful, horrendous experience of Reconstruction--and we were able to take strides at finally identifying who we were--as a nation, as a country, as a people.
Now, with the way our nation is behaving, I have two questions to ask, but I don't know which is the most apt one: What is America?
Or what are America?
Immediately, I was confronted with a new reality.
Unless you've not read much of my work, you probably already know that my strongest historical areas are the sweet-spot of British history: the Renaissance. History that touches Shakespeare--anything of the British Isles, including his Richard II and onward--is something that I really enjoy. I even have a greater interest in Roman history because of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar than I would for any other reason. After Shakespeare died, the poetic torch was passed to John Milton, which means that my interest goes pretty much from Richard II to James II. That's my favorite--nay, I should say, favourite--time to study.
I study other parts of history, too, but it is always in connection to the courses I teach. However, when it comes to American history, I remain aloof. It isn't that I don't like American history, but I feel a little too conflicted about the different ways of looking at our own patched past. There's a political and nationalistic and patriotic lens that is hard to shake off, and sometimes, I don't want to shake it off. It's hard to be challenged about American history--and it's hard to come to grips with, too. While I don't mind a challenge, I always feel...uncomfortable talking about American history. It's a strange feeling, one that probably needs more analysis than what I'm giving here.
However, since I know that I'm deficient in this particular area, I decided to pick up the aforementioned podcast. And, as I said, the first lecture really surprised me. It revolved around how disparate the country was when it was founded. Indeed, this professor, Jay Winik, makes the argument that we weren't a nation until after the Civil War.
That really gave me pause. What did he mean? As he continued to explain his position, a lot of what I've unconsciously wondered at became clear. For example, the passion with which the South defended the institution of slavery was a puzzle. I mean, racism, obviously. And there's no hint of trying to pass off the Civil War as anything but being about the slave question in the podcast, so it was a relief that the professor wasn't going to try to dismiss the sin of slavery behind handwaving of "states' rights!" No, slavery was absolutely the root cause of the war. However, the conception of America--of what the country was--had yet to become understood. The world they inhabited looked at things so differently from how we do now that it's no longer a surprise that slavery was a hill they were--both metaphorically and literally--willing to die on.
The people, according to Winik, were so different from east to west and north to south that it's actually better to consider the thirteen colonies as a replication of northern Europe. The largest difference was the language was, basically, the same. Think of how disparate Prussia was from Denmark, France from Spain, Belgium from Italy during the mid-1800s. That is how those who lived in New York felt about Georgians, or folks from Massachusetts did about Rhode Island. The common goal of a nation, as opposed to a country, had not become part of the American sense.
Indeed, this was so pervasive that, despite the fact that they all spoke English, how they spoke of themselves was different. "The United States are..." was how the sentence was formulated. It wasn't until after the Civil War that they started saying "The United States is..." The difference is small linguistically, but enormous in meaning. The mutual desire for progress, the hope for balance, satisfaction, and "going the right direction" became more tangible through this sort of verbal maneuvering. Despite the atrocity of the Civil War, America bound itself together--through a long, painful, horrendous experience of Reconstruction--and we were able to take strides at finally identifying who we were--as a nation, as a country, as a people.
Now, with the way our nation is behaving, I have two questions to ask, but I don't know which is the most apt one: What is America?
Or what are America?