Attendant Cruelties: Nation and Nationalism in American History

This work is an exploration of the nature of American nationalism and its manipulation by unscrupulous leaders. For nearly four centuries, religion and capitalism have been the central values of the American way. Most Americans have made of this national legacy a force of inclusion in a land shaped by successive waves of change and immigration. But others have chosen to define their nation’s values by exclusion, within a Republic to be sure, but within a democratic polity that was also constrained by race, class, and gender. Throughout the nation’s history unforeseen circumstances have often decided which of these two themes - inclusion or exclusion - will prevail. Hence the power of America’s Presidents to push the country toward either humane libertarianism (as did Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt during America’s darkest hours) or towards racism, imperialism and war as did Jackson with the expulsion of the Cherokees, McKinley with the Philippines in 1898, and George W. Bush with the international community today.