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3 - The “Genius of American Politics”

The South, Ideology, and American Identity

from Part II - Understanding the South and the American Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2024

Lacy K. Ford
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
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Summary

This chapter examines Daniel Boorstin’s contention that historically Americans’ special genius grew from taking a practical, nonideological approach to politics and government. For Boorstin, this approach allowed Americans, unfettered by ideology, to react to changing circumstances with deliberation and confidence. Boorstin argued that even the American Civil War was a nonideological conflict, emerging from a practical sectional disagreement over the need to manage the slavery question. Since Boorstin, scholarship has revealed that he failed to grasp the ideological nature of American politics in the Age of Civil War and the conflicting ideologies that drove North and South to war. Given the horrific conflict, the sweeping nature of emancipation, and the promise, later abandoned, of full citizenship to African Americans, how can the nation now have confidence that the political “genius” of American politics can survive the current era of polarization and disillusionment?

Type
Chapter
Information
Understanding the American South
Slavery, Race, Identity, and the American Century
, pp. 66 - 88
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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