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A History of the American People. By Paul Johnson. (New York: Harper Collins, 1997). If the word "awesome" had not been so misused and overused, it would be most apt for this majestic 976-page tome. A convincing case can be made that this is the best one-volume history of the United States yet written. It is not just a comprehensive chronological vista of American history from the earliest European settlements to the Clinton administration; it also is a mine of little known facts. In addition, Johnson pauses frequently to reflect upon the meaning of the events; his insights are sound, thought provoking, and add depth. A History of the American People is not pedantic, but lively, crackling with excitement. On the first page, Johnson raises three fundamental questions about American history. First, can the United States, a country whose European founders pushed aside the indigenous inhabitants of the land and permitted slavery, rise above these injustices by establishing a society of order, justice, and freedom? Second, can this society blend the ideals that must underlie a good society with the acquisitiveness and ambition which drive development? The third question was, have we Americans succeeded in establishing a country which has been, and will continue to be, an example of good? Between the first page and the last, Johnson answered all three in the affirmative. He raised the oft-pondered question concerning the intersection of freedom and authority. When does one end and the other begin? How do they interact, since both are essential for a society to survive and to be worth preserving? He referred to the political thought of John Winthrop, the great seventeenth-century governor of Massachusetts Bay: "Man had liberty not to do what he liked-that was for the beasts- to distinguish between good and evil by studying God's commands, and then to do that only which is good." All viable free societies balance the tension between freedom and authority, adjusting continually: too much freedom leads to diminution of values and confusion; too much authority diminishes freedom. Johnson avers that U.S. independence was achieved at a time when there was a confluence of second-rate British leadership and first-rate American. Of the prime ministers during the critical years from 1763 to 1782, he said that "it would be hard to think of a more dismal succession of non-entities. . . ." Conversely, of the Americans Johnson wrote; "Unfortunately for Britain-and fortunately for America-the generation that emerged to lead the colonies into independence was one of the most remarkable group of men in history-sensible, broadminded, courageous, usually well educated, gifted in a variety of ways, mature, and long-sighted, sometimes lit by flashes of genius." Johnson is well aware of the Christian impetus behind most of the colonial foundings, and of the ebbing and flowing but continual influence of that faith through American history to the present. Why then, he asked, was there no Christian foundational statement in the U.S. Constitution? He stated that had the document been written in 1687, it would have been there and had the date of writing been 1887, there would have been definite religious underpinnings. The year 1787, though, marked the transitory, but still real, high tide of Enlightenment secularism in the United States. It should be noted that state constitutions of the era did contain clear religious, generally Christian, sections. Probably the Founding Fathers, as outstanding as they were in establishing the constitutional foundation of the new country and even though a number of solid Christians were among them, still were too dominated by Enlightenment influence. Johnson understands economic reality, especially in U.S. history. He referred to the depression of 1921 as the last in our history out of which there was a market-inspired recovery. The federal government cut taxes and spending and permitted market forces to work. The depression was sharp, but short. He stated that the 1929 depression was caused by the flawed monetary policy of the Federal Reserve during the 1920s, which led to artificially low credit and excessive expansion. The policies of the Hoover administration and, even more, of the Roosevelt administration, prevented the readjustment of the economy as had happened after previous depressions. The depression was prolonged and big government arrived to stay for the rest of the century. Even in such an excellent book, there are trivial mistakes. Sir Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, and his colleagues backed the Massachusetts Bay Puritans, not the Pilgrims. King Philip's War ravaged New England during the summer and autumn of 1676, not 1679. Alexander Hamilton commanded a battalion of light infantry at Yorktown, not a battery, and led a brigade-size force in the heroic attack on the night of October 14, 1781. It was William Wilberforce, not Samuel Wilberforce, who led the British movement to abolish the slave trade and slavery. The Republican convention that nominated Eisenhower was in 1952, not 1953. Johnson stated that Eisenhower normally ran a balanced budget. Actually, only three of his eight budgets were balanced. It's not correct to say that Lyndon Johnson "had certainly bugged Democratic Party headquarters during the Goldwater campaign," since Johnson was a Democrat. Archbishop Fulton Sheen died in 1979, not in 1975. Such niggling aside, Johnson deserves the highest accolades for this magnificent study of the United States. An Englishman, he stands in the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville and James Bryce, perceptive foreigners who could look more dispassionately at this country than could Americans. It struck Johnson as ironic that at the very time in the second half of the twentieth century when many social problems plague this country, government, especially the courts, did everything possible to reduce the influence of religion in public life, particularly in the education of young people. He ended the book convinced that the social and moral declension will be reversed, that we Americans will overcome or control our problems, continuing to be "the cynosure of the world's eyes." John M. Pafford |