American Travel Narratives

Ever since the founding of the American Republic (and some might argue from the earliest days of colonial settlement), visitors and natives alike have travelled the United States of America in search of the US National Character. Perhaps the most eloquent summation of the search comes in one of its earliest attempts Hector St John de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer. Letter III is entitled “What is an American?” It is a question that no-one, native or outside observer, has yet found a satisfactory answer to.

There is something about the American Dream that is intoxicating – its promises of freedom and progress almost inextricably intertwined. It finds its expression in all kinds of nooks and crannies, from Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis to Michael Howard’s invocation of a ‘British Dream’ early in his tenure as leader of the Conservative Party here in Britain. And yet pinning it down to something more tangible is a somewhat more tricky task.

A whole host of writers, then, from Alexis de Tocqueville to Bill Bryson, have travelled across America hoping to divine some insight into the nature of democracy, into the paradoxes and oddities of such a large, diverse nation. It goes without saying that they all bring their own personal hopes and dreams with them in their narratives; it goes without saying, also, that they were travelling in remarkably different times.

One of the things I am currently doing with my spare time is reading (or, often, re-reading) these narratives to see what sort of picture of America they portray, and on what issues they differ. Have views of America stayed the same over the years (especially over the 20th century)? Did the hopes of 18th and 19th century writers come to fruition? From what sources does admiration of America flow most easily from?

So, over the coming months, expect to see a number of book review-style posts as I work my way through the books I have at hand. It’s part of my aim to make the list as eclectic as possible, with Americans and foreigners alike included, as well as journalistic and serious studies. If anyone has any suggestions for what I might like to include on my list, please feel free to make suggestions in the comments.

Mission Statement

There’s one theme that unites most of the stories in the news over the past few months or so. That is, with rare exceptions, they’ve been unbelievably boring. In Britain in particular, there’s a good reason for that – no-one wants to make a brave or bold move when they know that Tony Blair will be stepping down in the next few months. Why waste time publicising new policies when Gordon Brown can assimilate them into his programme the minute he gets the keys to Number 10? But it’s a similar story in America, too, where the Presidential candidates are jockeying for media attention without wanting to give the bloodthirsty hounds any meat to tear into.

The key reason for all of this is that our political thinking is heavily conditioned by the electoral cycle. The voice of the people is heard only periodically – so election days become moments of seizmic shifts. Anyone connected with politics knows that direct, tangible results are only ever seen at the ballot box, and so all their efforts go into making sure that everything goes right on one given day. And when so much work is focused on such a specific aim, the reporting of politics is necessarily skewed towards election day. Besides, without a focus on elections, how could you manage personality-driven news so easily?

Yet when historians come back to write their version of the Noughties, elections will only figure loosely in such a narrative. Of course election data is important – but it is important only insofar as it helps mark the passing of far broader trends. When historians will look at opinion polls, it will not be the headline “who will you vote for” figure they concentrate on most; it will be their attitudes to different rafts of legislation. I suspect that the debate about ID Cards will fit into a broader narrative of civil liberties that stretches back to Michael Howard’s tenure as Home Secretary at the very least, and will be increasingly divorced from Blair and Bush’s political fate.

My aim as I start this blog is to think about the issues defining the political landscape today in wider perspective. Sometimes this will take the form of historical parallels; sometimes it will mean a consideration of other occasions an issue has been raised; sometimes the discussion will be firmly rooted in the present, but developing strategies over a longer period of time. History, after all, is primarily an approach, a way of thinking about the world and about the influences of change over time. And it is an approach that can allow us to take a more detached view of problems – to avoid short-term thinking and reacting to minutiae that in the long run are of little significance.

For those of you who have followed me here from my blogging at Militant Moderate, thank you for joining me, and I hope that the more specific focus of this blog allows me to entertain and inform you even more!