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Richard O. Curry - American Chameleon: Individualism in Trans-National Context

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Book:
American Chameleon: Individualism in Trans-National Context
Author:
Richard O Curry / Lawrence B Goodheart
Publisher:
The Kent State University Press
Genre:
Books / Politics
Year:
1991
City:
Kent
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4 / 5
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The concept of individualism that emerged in American society during the late 18th century has long defined Americas social, political, and economic institutions. American Chameleon is the first historical work which addresses this concept and its multiple meanings, usages, and contradictions.

In this collection of 11 essays, individualism is placed in a comparative, trans-national context that differentiates the American national experience from its European cultural heritage. The authors analyze meanings and usages of individualism in Europeparticularly France, Germany, and Great Britainin order to clarify those found in American society. Also examined are the limitations of the concept in relation to minority groups and women. A 19th-century perspective of individualism is the central focus of American Chameleon, but the final chapter adds a contemporary dimension. Editors and authors Richard Curry and Lawrence Goodheart herein offer scholars, students and interested citizens new interpretations and a deeper understanding of the past, present, and future of American society itself.

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American Chameleon

Individualism in Trans-National Context

edited by R ICHARD O. C URRY and

L AWRENCE B. G OODHEART

THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Kent, Ohio, and London, England

1991 by THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS, Kent, Ohio 44242

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 91-7150

ISBN 0-87338-443-1

ISBN 0-87338-448-2 (pbk.)

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

American chameleon : individualism in trans-national context / edited
by Richard O. Curry and Lawrence B. Goodheart.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 0-87338-443-1 (cloth) ISBN 0-87338-448-2 (pbk.)

1. Individualism. 2. Social values. 3. United StatesSocial
conditions19th century. 4. United StatesPolitics and
government19th century. I. Curry, Richard Orr. II. Goodheart,
Lawrence B., 1944
HM136.A57 1991

302.54dc20

917150

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.

John H. Jensen

and

Robert W. Lougee

Contents

S CHOLARLY collaboration, especially over a long period of time, is a difficult art form at bestone that requires a combination of qualities. In addition to having compatible interests and mutual respect, successful collaboration also requires enthusiasm, commitment, persistence, and, at times, forbearance. There are, no doubt, other factors as well. But for whatever combination of reasons, both personal and scholarly in nature, Lawrence B. Goodheart and I have managed to collaborate successfully on several projects for nearly fifteen yearsmost of which have had a bearing, directly or indirectly, on aspects of the history of American individualism.

In editing American Chameleon, Goodheart and I owe our greatest debts of gratitude to our fellow contributors: Yehoshua Arieli, Robert Calhoon, James Henretta, Linda Kerber, Loren Schweninger, Robert Shalhope, and Karl Valois. Along the way, Goodheart and I have accumulated a number of other personal and intellectual IOUs that require acknowledgment. For example, earlier versions of our essays on abolitionism and the National Liberal League published here were presented as papers at the meetings of the New England Historical Association in 1987, the Organization of American Historians in 1988, and the thirteenth biennial meeting of ANZASA (AustraliaNew Zealand-American Studies Association), held at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, in August 1988. We are indebted to Lawrence J. Friedman, Edward Pessen, James Schleifer, and Gerald Sorin for their comments at the OAH and NEHA meetings, which helped sharpen various aspects of our papers. Gregory Bowen, a doctoral candidate at Flinders University in Adelaide, deserves special mention for arranging our session at the ANZASA conference.

We also want to express our appreciation to Jerrold Atlas and Joe Dorinson of Long Island University who, as chairpersons of the 1986 meeting of the International Psychohistorical Association, extended an invitation to present our jointly authored paper on psychohistorical approaches to abolitionism at the IPA meeting in New York. In addition, we are indebted to Bruce Daniels, former editor of the Canadian Review of American Studies; to Ralph Gray, editor of the Journal of the Early Republic; to John Hubbell, editor of Civil War History and director of the Kent State University Press; and to Murray Rothbard, editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies for publishing other jointly authored pieces, most of which are related, directly or indirectly, to our essays published here.

In addition, we want to thank Robert Calhoon for sharing his insights on aspects of twentieth-century American individualism, and our colleague at the University of Connecticut, Vincent A. Carrafiello, for reading chapters one and two with his usual flair, critical acumen, and aplomb. Paul Manning, an undergraduate at the University of Connecticut, proved virtually indefatigable in tracking down scores of bibliographical references and in photocopying the manuscript and numerous other essays needed for reference. His efforts lightened our burdens considerably. Moreover, the University of Connecticut chapter of the American Association of University Professors deserves thanks for providing funds for typing portions of the manuscript.

I also want to express my own sense of appreciation to Ronald Formisano and to John Hench, Director of Research and Publications at the American Antiquarian Society, for inviting me to present two earlier papers on aspects of nineteenth-century individualism at the AAS Seminar on American Social and Political History, 17501850. Special thanks also go to Joseph Peden of Baruch College, CUNY, for extending invitations to participate in two conferences on American individualism sponsored by the Liberty Fund. The first was held at the Rye Hilton in New York in 1981. The second, which was devoted to the concept of individualism in Jacksonian America, took place in 1985 at Half Moon Bay, California, an idyllic setting. It was at this conference that I first had the opportunity to exchange views with scholars such as Robert Remini, Robert Shalhope, and James Schleifer.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to my colleague, Robert Lougee, for taking the time and effort to explain and explore some of the vagaries involved in attempting to understand German conceptions of individualismespecially the transformation of the Romantic concept of individuality into a theory of organic community which, in Germany, was still called individualism. John Jensen of the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand, deserves special mention for calling my attention to the work of Elie Kedourie and other writers on German nationalism, which helped to clarify the anti-Enlightenment basis and, indeed, the revolutionary implications of Immanuel Kants thought. In addition to providing intellectual stimulation, Jensen and his spouse, Frannie, made my wife Patti and me part of their extended family during our sojourn as Fulbrighters in New Zealand in 1981. Goodheart and I also appreciated the warmth and hospitality extended by the Jensens to us during our visit to the Antipodes in 1988.

In addition to authoring our own essays in this book, Goodheart and I also collaborated in writing the first and final chapters. Although I wrote most of , Individualism in Trans-National Context. Goodheart wrote the concluding section, which deals with the British experience. Conversely, Goodheart wrote most of the last chapter, A Confusion of Voices: The Crisis of Individualism in Twentieth-Century America. My primary contribution to this essay is the concluding sections, which analyze some of the contradictions of the Reagan-Bush era.

Finally, I want to thank Karl Valois, friend, doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut, and occasional golfing companion with an unbelievable handicap, for writing most of the section on the transformation of American politics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in our essay, The Emergence of an Individualistic Ethos in American Society. The responsibility for writing the rest of the essay, for good or for ill, belongs to me.

Richard O. Curry

Individualism in Trans-National Context

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