WHO WE ARE

The second volume in a trilogy of histories exploring seismic shifts in U.S. culture.

Chaitkin concentrates the second volume of his series largely on the administration of President Abraham Lincoln and his chief economic adviser, Henry C. Carey. “The two men, from very different backgrounds, both devoted their lives to advancing the American System of economics, to elevate and equalize the condition of man throughout the world,” he writes. “Their paths would intersect in Lincoln’s presidency, when their initiatives would enable escape from conditions that had oppressed mankind since the dawn of time.” Chaitkin preserves this shuttling between broadscale and minute observation throughout the book. He’s as interested in the specific workings of 19th-century agricultural reform as he is in wide-ranging, current geopolitics: “In our era, Anglo-American globalists condemn that successful system of national sovereignty,” he writes. “They demand instead subservience to powerful private interests, under a ‘rules-based international order’ which seeks to prevent any nation from rising to great-power status.” He carefully and extensively annotates his chapters, as well as providing pictures, footnotes, and Dramatis Personae, in order to keep his sprawling narrative as accessible as possible to readers unfamiliar with the time period. Chaitkin is equally conscientious when extending his narrative well beyond the American Civil War and through the country’s westward expansion, Progressive Era, McKinley administration, and industrialization. Government reports and a host of other primary documents are heavily excerpted many times in every chapter.

Readers encountering Chaitkin’s opening sentiments might be concerned about signing on for the book’s long haul. He begins by saying “My country is terribly misguided, misled by those serving the interests not of the nation but of a global clique.” This, plus the worrying mentions of “globalists,” might remind readers of the fascist wordplay of using the term “globalists” when referring to Jews, something prevalent in MAGA government and social media. Fortunately, Chaitkin never actually substantiates his narrative’s concern over “the transatlantic imperial system.” Instead, the bulk of his book primarily (and intriguingly) considers the Lincoln administration and its aftermath through a financial rather than a social or political lens. With refreshing objectivity, Chaitkin looks at such modern hot-button issues as tariffs and protectionism, noting that the strong protectionism of the Lincoln administration seemed to result in financial strengthening and an improvement of the “modern living standards.” In fact, although the majority of the book dwells on the details of economic and governmental growth in the 19th century, the author often widens the scope in order to assess the long-term consequences of those developments. “Private power – oligarchy – has become the source of the greatest threat to human civilization,” he writes. “The public good has required governmental measures to tame private power, as well as to utilize it.” Chaitkin frequently strikes a defensive note that obscures his points; he says that “only one who cherishes the highest human cultural and spiritual attainments” will be able to “illuminate our tragic failure to live up to that identity.” But readers who can untangle these moments will find a good deal of food for thought in these pages.

A powerful, if occasionally muddled, account of economic transformation in 19th-century America.