Academic/Historian Filter: How did we stop seeing each other as people?

May 24, 2017 8:54 AM

I'm looking for a non-partisan book on the history of U.S. politics. This is a huge topic, but I'm trying to better understand how politics in the U.S. has become so divided, especially why liberals and conservatives can't seem to understand (or want to understand) each other's perspectives. The news is not helpful for this; either there's too much spin or not enough historical context. More below the fold.

My goal is twofold: 1.) to better understand the consequences of proposed policies and executive orders that I'm reading about and 2.) stay informed without completely losing it. I think an academic approach would help with both goals.

What I don't want: books written by anyone who push the agenda of either party. The closest I've come to this is "Mindfulness in Politics" by Melvin McLeod, which has a Buddhist perspective and isn't really what I'm looking for, mostly because I don't understand Buddhism enough to catch the subtle nuances.

posted by onecircleaday to Law & Government (12 answers total)

Christopher Lasch's The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Discontents is a fascinating look at the ramifications of the idea of progress and the transformation of society into something that's dramatically larger than human-scale. Lasch was a strange combination of Marxist and traditionalist and definitely isn't pushing an agenda that's recognizable in either party.
posted by Polycarp at 9:30 AM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn
The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander
A Colony in a Nation, Chris Hayes
In video form: The 13th
posted by melissasaurus at 10:22 AM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Histories of regionalism in the US are worth looking at (e.g. Colin Woodward's excellent American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America) as are books that detail the run up to Civil War and the cultural factors that contributed to that (Paul Calore's Causes of the Civil War: The Political, Cultural, Economic and Territorial Disputes Between the North and South comes to mind.) There's a strong argument to be made that periods of relative national unity are a tenuous exception in our history and that violent disagreement is actually the norm.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:38 AM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

I tried writing a link-filled response three times that said what ryanshepard is saying about periods of national unity being the exception, but my browser kept crashing so I guess it's not meant to be. There used to be brawls in Congress, fist fights on the way to voting booths (which judges felt was a healthy part of a manly democracy), bombings, lynchings, massive strikes, rich white men running everything, witch hunts, and all-round demonization of one's political opponents. The periods of apparent peaceableness came under Eisenhower and Reagan, when establishment media closed ranks in a way that made it seem like there weren't other opinions worth talking about. I don't think you'll find the non-partisan history book you're looking for - and if you do, it won't make for very good reading - because American political history has been filled with intense conflicts over big issues in which opposing sides dug in, dehumanized their opponents, and fought the good (or bad) fight. Much like today.

However, on the specific question that you ask above the fold, you might be interested in The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart.
posted by clawsoon at 10:53 AM on May 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: You guys are awesome. Thank you so much! Looking forward to checking all of these out. Keep 'em coming!
posted by onecircleaday at 11:12 AM on May 24, 2017

Yeah, I agree with clawsoon--political polarization is nothing new and there have been many times in American history when it was much, much worse than it is now. As with many elements of our national self-perception, we seem to view the 1950s/early 1960s as a kind of baseline, even though that was as historically unique a period as any other.

In any case, this AskHistorians post addresses your question a bit and there are several suggestions for interesting reads on American political history in the comments, including this and this on the origins of modern American conservatism.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:15 AM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

> Yeah, I agree with clawsoon--political polarization is nothing new and there have been many times in American history when it was much, much worse than it is now.

Yup. I like to recommend Richard N. Rosenfeld's American Aurora; it's long and unabashedly partisan (you can read a grumpy NY Times review here to get an idea), but it will forever disabuse you of the idea that in the glorious days after independence everyone was dancing around the maypole singing "Kumbaya." (The book presents the point of view that, to quote the review, "George Washington was an incompetent general, always complaining, who won no battles -- scarcely fought any -- and was secretly disdained by those who served under him.") And that's a good thing: democracy is only alive when there are lively disputes.
posted by languagehat at 12:59 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is tangential, but Nixonland by Rick Perlstein is worth reading. Nixon is a key figure in the history of American political decline, and this is a wonderful, thorough history of his life and times. Perlstein is a liberal who has written for liberal magazines before, but his ideological bias doesn't really show through.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:31 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

As you read, it would be worth keeping in mind that for most of American history--arguably, to some extent, to this day--many Americans literally did not see a significant portion of other Americans as people. To understand that, you might look at the dated but still relevant American Slavery, American Freedom.
posted by praemunire at 2:48 PM on May 24, 2017 [6 favorites]

When Charles Dickens visited the United States in the 1840s, he complained about how everybody he met argued partisan politics, and how no sooner was one election over than everybody started arguing about the next one. His American Notes is a great read.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:05 PM on May 24, 2017

I think wanting a non-partisan analysis is doomed, here. If you want a balanced perspective, you can read partisan books from varying sides of the issues, but anyone who looks at American politics and writes a book that does not favor one side over the other is unusual enough that I wouldn't rely on them.
posted by LizardBreath at 6:49 PM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics is a classic in this area. To paraphase: Same as it ever was.
posted by at at 11:19 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]