Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
Good Evening, Chartres. It's been a long time. I look forward to our discussion of Lincoln as you are one of the real experts on the subject. I'd read DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA anytime anybody is ready to do so.
ReplyDelete(You'll lose your mind if you persist in reading WAR AND PEACE. Nobody who has ever read it is ever quite right again. You'll need therapy)
Me, too! I've never read Democracy in America (although I did listen to it once on tape).
ReplyDeleteRobert, you're probably right about War and Peace. As I told Chartres, I read it as my reward for studying for a full year for my doctoral exams. I so wanted to lose myself in a big messy novel for a change. How was I to know it was a big messy work of historiography? Live and learn (although I did love reading it - what a book!).
And yes, it's great to have Chartres here. It does feel like old times. And I second your wish that she'll join us on Lincoln. After all, she's the one who got me down this Lincoln track in the first place.
I've been in therapy off and on since 1962, Robert. A little Tolstoy won't hurt me much.
ReplyDeleteWe had a good discussion of Democracy in America back in the old NYT Am History days. Can't say I really want to return to it, as I had a lot of qualms with De Toqueville's view of America at the time. But, the recent Brogan biography sounds interesting,
ReplyDelete"Brogan argues, convincingly, that part of Tocqueville's personality was forever rooted in the old aristocratic world that his mind told him was dying. That internal contradiction proved an invaluable intellectual asset when he visited the United States in 1831-32 and began to draft Democracy in America, for it gave his analysis of the genuinely new political chemistry congealing in America a dramatic edge. What Jefferson had called "self-evident" was for Tocqueville a historically unprecedented development destined to topple all the monarchies of Europe and the kind of aristocratic society that had shaped him. This is a potent theme, one that made me think of the overripe ironies of Henry Adams in his famous The Education of Henry Adams, embracing his irrelevancy in the modern world that was aborning. Tocqueville's temperament was less melodramatic than Adams's, but he did recognize that he was a victim of his greatest prophecy, that the triumph of democracy meant the end of his world."
http://www.amazon.com/Alexis-Tocqueville-Professor-Hugh-Brogan/dp/0300108036/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242633092&sr=1-7
Well, then, if we do decide to read him either as our main book or on the side, you can sneak in and denounce him! Interesting looking biography.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember enough about him and his writing to say one way or the other, although I'm skeptical of all this American exceptionalism stuff. In fact, I recently bought a book on the myth of American exceptionalism which I'm looking forward to.
Wish I would have known about the Times discussion of Toqueville. I came late to those discussions and even then kept mostly to history.
Thanks for the idea, Chartres. Long time! Do you still have the big cat?
ReplyDeleteDon't know when I will get to read this, but I just downloaded e-text of Democracy in America for my kindle from manybooks.net. Thanks for the idea. I've taken a look at the book many times in stores but never bought it.
Only because you asked, Marti, will I go off topic and say that the present cat population consists of Buster, Jack, Jimmy and Sweetpea indoors.
ReplyDeleteThe back deck cats are Taffy and Jane and their kittlings: Boris, Nikolai, Andrei, Buttercup and Daisy Mae.
Now back to the business at hand.
It's always interesting to hear about your cats, Chartres. I take it the kittens are relatively new arrivals, given your current reading.
ReplyDeleteAnd in a similar spirit, I report that I had two pheasants in my backyard yesterday. First time I've ever seen that, but then maybe I'm too busy trying to keep out the deer to notice. I'm also being overwhelmed by hummingbirds.
Chartres, didn't see your answer until today. Thanks for letting me know about the cats and their names. I'm down to one very large cat, Pumpkin, so now she thinks she's queen.
ReplyDeleteAvrds: pheasants, deer and hummingbirds, oh my.
OK that's it for my off-topic remarks, I think.
Marti, it's a jungle out here.
ReplyDelete