A concise new history of the United States revealing that crises — not unlike those of the present day — have determined our nation’s course from the start In A Nation Forged by Crisis, historian Jay Sexton contends that our national narrative is not one of halting yet inevitable progress, but of repeated disruptions brought about by shifts in the international system. Sexton shows that the … Sexton shows that the American Revolution was a consequence of the increasing integration of the British and American economies; that a necessary precondition for the Civil War was the absence, for the first time in decades, of foreign threats; and that we cannot understand the New Deal without examining the role of European immigrants and their offspring in transforming the Democratic Party.
A necessary corrective to conventional narratives of American history, A Nation Forged by Crisis argues that we can only prepare for our unpredictable future by first acknowledging the contingencies of our collective past.past.past.past.
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If you, like me and many others, are looking around lately and feeling like the world is coming apart at the seams, worrying that our democratic institutions are in serious danger, then I highly recommend that you pick up this book. Sexton takes an in-depth look back at some pivotal crisis moments during America’s history that shaped the nation we know today: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II and its aftermath. It’s reassuring to see that our country has been one of turmoil throughout its 242-year existence, and that each time it faced a moment of true crisis with an unknown outcome, luck was on our side. But that’s the scary part as well: while the intellect and courage and convictions of our statesmen and citizens had a hand in striving for a good outcome, in the end it came down to sheer chance and the convergence of many disparate things. Still, although Sexton warns Americans to take off our rose-colored glasses and look at history not with nostalgia or a sense of inevitability, he does offer a kernel of hope and a glimmer of light for those fighting now to save what we hold dear – and to push America once again to become a better place:
“Crises have a way of empowering those who have hitherto been marginalized. The patriot cause unleashed social forces that ultimately gave birth to modern democracy; the African Americans and immigrants who served in the Union armies that reduced the Old South to rubble could not be treated after the war as they had been before it; and the white ethnics, working classes, and African Americans who swelled the ranks of organized labor formed the backbone of the New Deal coalition that would dominate American politics for a generation.
Moments of crisis also brought to center stage foreign powers, the most overlooked actors in American history. Foreign powers were the fulcrum upon which the fate of the American nation has hinged in those rare moments in which its future – indeed, its very existence, hung in the balance…
However events unfold in the short term, one thing is a near certainty: there will be a time when the American nation again encounters a crisis that unleashes transformative change. All of its citizens will have to make sacrifices in order for the nation to mobilize its full power. Furthermore, if the past is any indication, the outcome of the next crisis will be determined not only by the willingness of Americans to face it but also by the actions of those beyond the nation’s borders as well as the foreign-born within them. At some point in the future, the United States will confront another Saratoga moment in which its fate hangs in the balance and it is not fully in control of the outcome. As we navigate our way through that crisis, whenever it may be, we would be well served to remember something that American history teaches us: the more we look outward, the more prepared we’ll be.”
*Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, provided by the author and/or the publisher in exchange for an honest review.