The Mad Historian's Athenaeum, Vol. 1, No. 19

Herring, George C. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. xvi + 1036 ppg.

            This entry into the Oxford History of the United States focuses its attention on the diplomatic affairs of the nation since its founding in 1776. In doing so, this volume examines US history through the lens of two centuries and more which sets it apart from the other volumes which focus on smaller time spans. I found the book to be interesting as most histories tend to focus on all aspects of eras and denote foreign affairs only as sideshows to domestic events. Herring’s lens placed foreign affairs at the center of attention and showed how they impacted domestic affairs. This was a rather interesting change of pace.

            Herring is the Alumni Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Kentucky. He has specialized in studying American foreign affairs as a career field and has written several books on the subject. This volume is the culmination of that specialized study. Beginning with Benjamin Franklin and his incredible achievements in France during the American War of Independence right up to the first decade of the 21^st century, Herring covers the often mishandled foreign policy of the nation. 

            The thing that struck me the most in reading the book is that Herring seemed to show how there has never been a general US foreign policy. It has always changed depending on the will of the president and political party in control of the federal government. I would think this would be extremely frustrating for other nations who constantly had to adapt to a new president and their desires. If one thing stands out, it is that the nation’s leaders often regulated foreign policy to the backburner in favor of domestic affairs, but soon found out that this approach often failed. Woe to the American president who ignored foreign affairs after WWII. In some cases foreign policy influenced their decision making process far more than they wanted to the point where foreign affairs played a make or break role in their administration’s success in the long term. 

            A prime example of this would be Lyndon Johnson. The conflict in Vietnam sapped his ability to sustain his liberal domestic policy which resulted in conservative assaults upon it that severely crippled the legislation’s ability to live up to its promises. The nation still deals with the effects of that event. In the case of early American presidents, Herring also shows how foreign policy impacted their choices. Jefferson and Madison are often well known for their domestic policies and political idealism, but foreign affairs played such a strong role in their choices that contemporary Americans often felt those administrations were nowhere nearly as successful as modern Americans make them out to be. 

            Herring is extremely critical of the unilateralism policies of George W. Bush and his neo-conservative base. He saw these policies as disastrous which probably reflects the attitudes of the academic community at large during those times as well as the hindsight which has clearly shown unilateralism to have significantly damaged America’s standing in the international community. I thought the book was excellent even without that analysis. While some readers may object to that analysis, the facts bear out Herring’s assessment. 

            Herring supported his interpretations quite well with a great deal of scholarship as borne out by his supporting documentation. He used a rich mixture of primary and secondary sources to develop them. I really liked the book and its set up as working the different eras via chapters. Each one could be read separate from the other which is helpful for instructors who are looking for information on specific time periods. The drawback is this is a big book and the separation can cause readers to set it down for long stretches.  All in all I found the book to be a very good study of US foreign policy which has greatly enriched my understanding of the nation’s development over time.

History...Yesterday in the Present

Mount Vernon's Civil War symbolism

It remained whole during the war — a sign of America's early promise and future hope.

Story by Rachel Smolkin and Brenna Williams, CNN

Mount Vernon, Virginia

During the bloody years when the Civil War tore apart the United States, one place remained whole: a symbol of America's early promise and future hope.

Mount Vernon, the Virginia home of George Washington on the banks of the Potomac River, was a refuge for Union and Confederate soldiers throughout the war. All were welcome to pay their respects to the father of the country, so long as their weapons were left behind and their uniforms were removed or hidden from view.

For the next 14 months, Americans will focus on choosing their next president -- a task that is reinforcing the nation's modern-day divisions. But a fast-paced campaign waged in the moment also offers an opportunity to look backward -- a chance to rekindle stories of presidents who came before, the places they loved and how they brought the country together. 

No presidential place is more emblematic of American unity than the cherished home of its first president, which attracts more than 1 million visitors each year.

About this series

Presidential Places is a weekly series on past presidents and places they loved. Over the next five weeks, we'll take a look at iconic presidential sites from Mount Vernon to LBJ's ranch.

Yet Mount Vernon likely would not be here today if it weren't for the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. The nation's oldest historic preservation society, which formed in the years leading up to the Civil War to save Washington's house, kept it open to both sides during the war and protected it in the turbulent years afterward, when survival and recovery -- not preservation of national landmarks -- consumed the nation's attention.

"It's hard to believe, but only 50 years after his death, in the early 1850s, the home was in complete disrepair," said Curt Viebranz, president of George Washington's Mount Vernon, during a recent interview by Washington's marble tomb. "A woman was taking a steamer (on the Potomac). It was the custom of the captain to ring the bell when he got in front of Mount Vernon. She looked up. She saw the shape of the house."

Upset by her moonlight view, Louisa Bird Cunningham persuaded her daughter, Ann, to take up the mission of saving it.

"I was painfully distressed at the ruin and desolation of the home of Washington and the thought passed through my mind: Why was it that the women of his country did not try to keep it in repair, if the men could not do it?" Louisa Cunningham wrote to Ann Pamela Cunningham. "It does seem such a blot on our country!"

Five years after founding the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, they raised enough for an $18,000 down payment in 1858 -- and paid off the entire $200,000 cost in 1866. In those days, fundraising by women was considered scandalous. So they and their friends wrote anonymous letters to newspapers to bring in money. 

An 1858 notice for the Courtland County Fair includes a request for contributions "from both sexes and in any sums" including "The dime or even the penny of the child" and is signed by the "Lady Managers" of the Mount Vernon Association. A December 2, 1853, appeal to the "mothers and daughters of the South" is signed simply by "A Southern Matron."

The ladies did not hold back in stating their case in the starkest terms. An 1858 plea "To the Children of the Public Schools" notes that Washington's happiest days were spent at his beautiful home, and he worked throughout his life to maintain it. 

"Now this dear old house and farm of our Washington is running to rack and ruin; the paths are being run over with weeds; the house, his home, is crumbling to pieces; the tomb is a disgrace," the ladies wrote. "All say who visit it that the whole is a burning shame to the nation whom he so faithfully served -- It is a shame, children, and you must help to remove it!"

As the ladies collected contributions, Washington's family, aware the home was falling into disrepair and struggling to maintain it, had begun the search for a trustworthy buyer. John Augustine Washington III, the President's great-grandnephew, wanted to sell it either to the Commonwealth of Virginia or the federal government, "neither of whom wanted any part of it, and part of it was because there was this sense of impending Civil War," Viebranz said. 

The ladies took over the house in 1860 -- a year before the start of the Civil War -- at a time of fast-rising tensions between the North and South.

"There was some nervousness about what might happen to the house," Viebranz said. "But through an order of Gen. Winfield Scott, who was a Union general, it was really set up as neutral ground. So, effectively, any soldiers that visited Mount Vernon, Confederate or Union soldiers, came out of uniform, with absolutely no flags or anything like that, because it was thought to be totally nonpartisan."

Even before the ladies took over, Washington's tomb had become a national site for pilgrimage. When he died on December 14, 1799, at 67, President John Adams approached Martha Washington about burying her husband at the site that would become the Capitol. 

Martha Washington reluctantly agreed, but the plan never came to fruition and Washington was buried at his home. Initially in a small tomb up the hill, he was moved to his present location in 1831. The site, lovely and peaceful, has two simple marble sarcophagi -- one is George Washington's, the other Martha's.

Americans came to pay their respects throughout the early 1800s. When the Civil War started, they kept coming: walking the grounds and, in some instances, taking rocks or other mementos.

All were expected to maintain their neutrality while on the property.

"While they may not have removed the uniform, the theory was to make sure that nobody was openly showing any of their uniform," Viebranz said. "So they may have come, changed, or they may have put on a cloak that covered all of their insignias and their battle uniform."

The ladies association picked up its work after the war, when the devastating loss of life and property turned attention away from national landmarks and toward more urgent matters.

The ladies acknowledged this reality in an 1868 appeal to the "rich men and rich women of the country." 

"We who would be willing to labor again, know that in this day, the people cannot be acted upon as before -- all is changed."

This plea, signed by Ann Pamela Cunningham, asks whether their work "shall remain like some funeral shaft -- perfect in design -- beautiful in execution -- but unfinished -- or, that it shall proceed to completion, with increasing beauty as it reaches its crowning point!" 

The ladies' early efforts established the goal of preserving presidential landmarks and offered a model for nonprofits to follow.

"The Mount Vernon Ladies Association really is the gold standard for presidential preservation," said Andrew Coffin, president and director of the Reagan Ranch. "They've done a phenomenal job."

CNN.com

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History...Yesterday in the Present

9-18-15

South Dakota: Please Reconsider Your Decision to Dump Early American History

Historians/History
tags: history

by John Fea

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, showing the Committee of Five presenting its work to Congress

 Top of Form

            In case you haven’t heard, the South Dakota Board of Education has dumped early American history from its K-12 curriculum.

            When I heard about this decision, a quote from one of the great nineteenth-century observers of American life came to mind.  During the 1830s a French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled throughout the United States and studied the character of American society.  His observations would later be published in his Democracy in America—a work that is just as important to our national identity today as it was when it first appeared in 1835.  

In Chapter Two of Democracy in America Tocqueville laments the way that individualism—an idea at the heart of American democracy—destroys a citizen’s appreciation of the past. 

“Among democratic nations,” he wrote, “new families are constantly springing up, others are constantly falling away, and all that remain change their condition; the woof of time is every instant broken and the track of generations effaced. Those who went before are soon forgotten; those who will come after, no one has any idea; the interest of man is confined to those in close propinquity to himself.” 

Tocqueville understood that sometimes in a democratic society we become so addicted to the present that we forget where we came from.  We lose touch with history—the subject that provides us with our identity as Americans. 

Now that early American history is no longer part of the curriculum, it is very unlikely that a student in the public schools of South Dakota will ever read Tocqueville’s quote. 

The decision of the South Dakota Board of Education seems to be based on the idea that early American history is not important because it occurred so long ago and has no relevance for the present.  The Board of Education seems to think that history is merely the memorization of dates, timelines, and names. 

The decision is also based on a very thin view of citizenship.  How can students understand what it means to be a citizen of South Dakota or the United States without understanding that everything that they encounter in the present is rooted in a historic context?  

History is more than memorization.  It teaches students that current events are contingent on the events that came before them.  History teaches us the root causes of the things that happen in our world today.  

When students learn about context, contingency, and causation they develop a deeper—more robust—understanding of the world around them. 

The study of the American past relieves us of our narcissism and helps us to see ourselves as part of a much larger human story.  As the Stanford historian Sam Wineburg writes, “mature historical understanding teaching us … to go beyond our brief life, and to go beyond the fleeting moment in human history to which we have been born.”  Don’t we want our young people—our future citizens—to understand their world in this way?

Sadly, the students of South Dakota have had the very foundations of American citizenship ripped out from under them.

Think about it:

●  Students will no longer be required to learn about the American Revolution.  How will they be good citizens if they don’t know anything about the ideas and values on which this country was built? 

●  Students will no longer be required to learn about the Constitution.  How will they know how the United States government works or about the rights afforded to all United States citizens?   

●  Students will no longer learn about slavery.  How will they understand race-relations in the United States without learning about the roots of the Civil Rights Movement and other black protest movements, including Black Lives Matter? 

●  What about Native Americans? I would think that any resident of South Dakota should know something about the Indians.  As it now stands, their understanding of Native American history will begin with the United States attempts to drive the Sioux from their lands and will end with Indian reservations and casinos. 

●  Without early American history most of the story of the women’s rights movement will no longer be taught.  Goodbye Seneca Falls.  Goodbye Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  South Dakota students will be left with a view of the past in which women were always able to vote. 

This all seems worse than the attempts in Texas and elsewhere to change the curriculum to conform to conservative or Christian views of history. 

Perhaps we should start thinking about Tocqueville less as an observer and more as a prophet.

Story from History News Network: South Dakota: Please Reconsider

9-18-15

South Dakota: Please Reconsider Your Decision to Dump Early American History

Historians/History
tags: history

 5  2  0

by John Fea

John Fea is the chair of the History Department at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, PA and the author of Why Study History?: Reflecting on the Importance of the Past.

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, showing the Committee of Five presenting its work to Congress

In case you haven’t heard, the South Dakota Board of Education has dumped early American history from its K-12 curriculum.
When I heard about this decision, a quote from one of the great nineteenth-century observers of American life came to mind.  During the 1830s a French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled throughout the United States and studied the character of American society.  His observations would later be published in his Democracy in America—a work that is just as important to our national identity today as it was when it first appeared in 1835.
In Chapter Two of Democracy in America Tocqueville laments the way that individualism—an idea at the heart of American democracy—destroys a citizen’s appreciation of the past.
“Among democratic nations,” he wrote, “new families are constantly springing up, others are constantly falling away, and all that remain change their condition; the woof of time is every instant broken and the track of generations effaced. Those who went before are soon forgotten; those who will come after, no one has any idea; the interest of man is confined to those in close propinquity to himself.”
Tocqueville understood that sometimes in a democratic society we become so addicted to the present that we forget where we came from.  We lose touch with history—the subject that provides us with our identity as Americans.
Now that early American history is no longer part of the curriculum, it is very unlikely that a student in the public schools of South Dakota will ever read Tocqueville’s quote.
The decision of the South Dakota Board of Education seems to be based on the idea that early American history is not important because it occurred so long ago and has no relevance for the present.  The Board of Education seems to think that history is merely the memorization of dates, timelines, and names.
The decision is also based on a very thin view of citizenship.  How can students understand what it means to be a citizen of South Dakota or the United States without understanding that everything that they encounter in the present is rooted in a historic context?
History is more than memorization.  It teaches students that current events are contingent on the events that came before them.  History teaches us the root causes of the things that happen in our world today.
When students learn about context, contingency, and causation they develop a deeper—more robust—understanding of the world around them.
The study of the American past relieves us of our narcissism and helps us to see ourselves as part of a much larger human story.  As the Stanford historian Sam Wineburg writes, “mature historical understanding teaching us … to go beyond our brief life, and to go beyond the fleeting moment in human history to which we have been born.”  Don’t we want our young people—our future citizens—to understand their world in this way?
Sadly, the students of South Dakota have had the very foundations of American citizenship ripped out from under them.

Think about it:
●  Students will no longer be required to learn about the American Revolution.  How will they be good citizens if they don’t know anything about the ideas and values on which this country was built?
●  Students will no longer be required to learn about the Constitution.  How will they know how the United States government works or about the rights afforded to all United States citizens?
●  Students will no longer learn about slavery.  How will they understand race-relations in the United States without learning about the roots of the Civil Rights Movement and other black protest movements, including Black Lives Matter?
●  What about Native Americans? I would think that any resident of South Dakota should know something about the Indians.  As it now stands, their understanding of Native American history will begin with the United States attempts to drive the Sioux from their lands and will end with Indian reservations and casinos.
●  Without early American history most of the story of the women’s rights movement will no longer be taught.  Goodbye Seneca Falls.  Goodbye Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  South Dakota students will be left with a view of the past in which women were always able to vote.
This all seems worse than the attempts in Texas and elsewhere to change the curriculum to conform to conservative or Christian views of history.
Perhaps we should start thinking about Tocqueville less as an observer and more as a prophet.

- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/160667#sthash.2f77AINR.dpuf