American Crucible

Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century

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by Gary Gerstle

Princeton University Press

Due/Published April 2001, 325 pages, cloth

ISBN 069104984X

"A bold, provocative, and often disturbing book about the contest between racial and civic definitions of American nationhood. Rarely has a work of scholarship examined the history of racism and exclusion in such comprehensive and dismaying detail, or in such clear and persuasive prose. Gerstle also contributes to the growing interest among historians in the concept of 'whiteness' by closely examining changing views of white ethnicity in the twentieth century. American Crucible is an important and impresive book and a major contribution to our understanding of twentieth-century America."--Alan Brinkley

This history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved for those who are white and of the "right" ancestry? Gerstle traces the forces of civic and racial nationalism, arguing that both profoundly shaped our society. He tells a story of events, institutions, and ideas that played on perceptions of ethnic/racial difference, from the world wars and the labor movement to the New Deal and Hollywood to the Cold War and the civil rights movement. He discusses the remnants of racial thinking among such liberals as FDR and LBJ; how Italians and Jews from Frank Capra to the creators of Superman perpetuated the New Deal philosophy while suppressing their own ethnicity; and the frustrations of African-American servicemen denied the opportunity to fight for their country along with the moral outrage of more recent black activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Malcolm X. Gerstle argues that the civil rights movement and Vietnam broke the liberal nation apart, and his analysis of this upheaval leads him to assess Reagan's and Clinton's attempts to resurrect nationalism. Can the United States ever live up to its civic creed?