American Struggle
Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology
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- ¥2,000
発行者による作品情報
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Soul of America unites centuries of essential American voices to understand our national debates and divisions from 1619 to the present, with his signature commentary on the consequential speeches, letters, and essays that led us to this moment.
“Jon Meacham has done it again. If there is a soul in American history, it emerges—indeed, explodes—from these pages.”—David W. Blight, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
In a polarized era, history can become a subject of political contention. Many see America as perfect; many others argue that the national experiment is fundamentally flawed. The truth, Meacham shows, likely lies between these extremes. America has had shining hours, and also dark ones.
In American Struggle, Jon Meacham illuminates the nation’s complicated past. This rich and diverse collection covers a wide spectrum of history, from 1619 to the twenty-first century, with primary-source documents that take us back to critical moments in which Americans fought over the meaning and the direction of the national experiment. From the founders to Lincoln to Obama, from Andrew Jackson to Theodore Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, from Seneca Falls to the March on Washington, this chorus—sometimes discordant and always fascinating—tells the story of the country and of its people. As clashes over liberty and slavery, inclusion and exclusion, play out, these voices, brilliantly framed by Meacham’s singular commentary, remind us that contentious citizenship and fair-minded observations are essential to bringing about the more perfect union envisioned in the Preamble to the Constitution, which Frederick Douglass called a “glorious liberty document.”
Conflict is nothing new in our democracy; rather, as Meacham and these texts show, tensions are inherent, stubborn, and perennial. And American Struggle teaches us anew that to know what has come before, to watch as long-running disputes rise and fall, is to be armed against despair.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With this unique anthology, Pulitzer winner Meacham (And There Was Light) aims to inspire by spotlighting tense moments of political polarization and conflicting viewpoints throughout American history. He does this by juxtaposing progressive and conservative texts, such as those defending slavery and those arguing for its abolition. Canonical works like the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, Martin Luther King's "Promised Land" speech, the Declaration of the Rights of Women drafted at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, and Emma Lazarus's poem "The New Colossus" are pitted against the likes of the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that upheld segregation and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephen's argument that slavery is morally good. These back-and-forths continue through the pro-peace and pro-war movements around both the Vietnam War and the "war on terror," and around 20th-century fights for women's rights, racial minority rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. While these documents are stirring and worthwhile, an astute reader already steeped in American progressive mythology will note that 20th-century battles and individuals that are less settled matters on the left get elided—there's no Milton Friedman, no Henry Kissinger, and no one directly opposing them. Still, there's much powerful thought to soak up here.
