.~`~.
The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America
Eric P. Kaufmann
The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America
Eric P. Kaufmann
As the 2000 census resoundingly demonstrated, the Anglo-Protestant ethnic core of the United States has all but dissolved. In a country founded and settled by their ancestors, British Protestants now make up less than a fifth of the population. This demographic shift has spawned a “culture war” within white America. While liberals seek to diversify society toward a cosmopolitan endpoint, some conservatives strive to maintain an American ethno-national identity. Eric Kaufmann traces the roots of this culture war from the rise of WASP America after the Revolution to its fall in the 1960s, when social institutions finally began to reflect the nation’s ethnic composition.
Kaufmann begins his account shortly after independence, when white Protestants with an Anglo-Saxon myth of descent established themselves as the dominant American ethnic group. But from the late 1890s to the 1930s, liberal and cosmopolitan ideological currents within white Anglo-Saxon Protestant America mounted a powerful challenge to WASP hegemony. This struggle against ethnic dominance was mounted not by subaltern immigrant groups but by Anglo-Saxon reformers, notably Jane Addams and John Dewey. It gathered social force by the 1920s, struggling against WASP dominance and achieving institutional breakthrough in the late 1960s, when America truly began to integrate ethnic minorities into mainstream culture.
1. Introduction
I. The WASP Ascendancy
2. The Rise of Anglo-America
3. Limited Liberals: “Double-Consciousness” in Anglo-American Thought, 1750–1920
4. Conservative Egalitarians: The Progressive Mind in the Nineteenth Century
II. The Cosmopolitan Vanguard, 1900–1939
5. Pioneers of Equality: The Liberal Progressives
6. Cosmopolitan Clerics: The Role of Ecumenical Protestantism
7. Expressive Pathfinders: The New York Modernists
III. The Fall of Anglo-America
8. Cosmopolitanism Institutionalized, 1930–1970
9. The Decline of Anglo-America
10. Cultural Modernization: Making Sense of Anglo-America’s Demise
11. American Whiteness: Dominant Ethnicity Resurgent?
12. Liberal Ethnicity and Cultural Revival: A New Paradigm
13. Conclusion
“[A] compelling study… Kaufmann writes with admirable detachment and objectivity, and reveals the mechanism by which the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders of the U.S. lost their political and cultural dominance. Kaufmann shows how a longstanding cosmopolitan element within Wasp ideology shifted from a symbolic role to the core of national life, and the Wasp population recast their own role accordingly. In other words, they did it to themselves… It is so refreshing to read a generous, open and positive book on this subject—what a pity that it is Huntington who has attracted the attention.” — Nicholas Cull, The Times Higher Education Supplement
“In three chronologically arranged sections, Kaufmann reinterprets the fate of Anglo-Protestants. As the most numerous early settlers and the first to create written records and lasting political institutions, Anglo-Protestants became economically, politically, and culturally dominant over the course of the seventeeth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Their self-defining commitment to Enlightenment ideals meant they tried to assimilate newcomers from beyond the British Isles, but few embraced “the idea of the American nation as truly global melting pot, much less a pan-European one” (p. 37). After 1900, however, liberal progressives, ecumenical Protestants, and New York modernists from within the ethnic group brought a more inclusive idea of nationalism to the fore. Although a less educated, traditionalist population continued to rely upon the myth-symbols of an Anglo-Protestant ethnicity, the elite turned away from these representations in favor of universalism. After World War II, cosmopolitanism was institutionalized, ethnic boundaries relaxed, and “once marginalized ethnic groups gained rough institutional parity with Anglo-Protestants” (p. 243). Kaufmann tops off his historical account with a prescription for national identity and ethnicity in today’s multicultural world, proposing “a reformed multiculturalism” that “allows for the retention of both ethnicity and individuality, all within the context of equality” — Allison Varzally, California State University
“Illuminating… Mr. Kaufmann shows how the culture of ‘white Anglo-Saxon protestants,’ or Wasps, was constructed and, from the early 20th century, gradually dismantled.” — Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times
“Eric Kaufmann’s The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America will make an important contribution to the long-sustained debate over the nature and distinctiveness of American identity and American nationality. Kaufmann forcefully and effectively locates the significant moving power that has transformed the United States from a society with a single dominant ethnic group, into one that is clearly something else, in the powerful central ideas that were present at the origins of American society.” — Nathan Glazer, Harvard University
“In the spring of 2004 veteran Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington published Who Are We?, an alarmist account of the crisis in contemporary American national identity. Huntington claimed that the values of the Anglo-Saxon founders of the Republic are today challenged by an ‘invasion’ of immigrants from an alien Latino culture. Eric P. Kaufman, a lecturer in politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, covers much of the same ground in this compelling study. Whereas Huntington wrote as a self-proclaimed ‘patriot’ and pointed swiftly to guilty hombres, Kaufman writes with admirable detachment and objectivity, and reveals the mechanism by which the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders of the United States lost their political and cultural dominance. Kaufman shows how a longstanding cosmopolitan element within WASP ideology shifted from a symbolic role to the core of national life, and the WASP population recast their own role accordingly. In other words, they did it to themselves.” — Nicholas J. Cull, University of Leicester
“Many of Kaufmann’s arguments and reinterpretations of historical periods are original. They will provoke discussion and criticism but in the process will advance our understanding of American national identity. He brings an original and fresh perspective to bear on the formation, content, and meaning of this identity.” — Desmond King, author of Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy
Kaufmann begins his account shortly after independence, when white Protestants with an Anglo-Saxon myth of descent established themselves as the dominant American ethnic group. But from the late 1890s to the 1930s, liberal and cosmopolitan ideological currents within white Anglo-Saxon Protestant America mounted a powerful challenge to WASP hegemony. This struggle against ethnic dominance was mounted not by subaltern immigrant groups but by Anglo-Saxon reformers, notably Jane Addams and John Dewey. It gathered social force by the 1920s, struggling against WASP dominance and achieving institutional breakthrough in the late 1960s, when America truly began to integrate ethnic minorities into mainstream culture.
1. Introduction
I. The WASP Ascendancy
2. The Rise of Anglo-America
3. Limited Liberals: “Double-Consciousness” in Anglo-American Thought, 1750–1920
4. Conservative Egalitarians: The Progressive Mind in the Nineteenth Century
II. The Cosmopolitan Vanguard, 1900–1939
5. Pioneers of Equality: The Liberal Progressives
6. Cosmopolitan Clerics: The Role of Ecumenical Protestantism
7. Expressive Pathfinders: The New York Modernists
III. The Fall of Anglo-America
8. Cosmopolitanism Institutionalized, 1930–1970
9. The Decline of Anglo-America
10. Cultural Modernization: Making Sense of Anglo-America’s Demise
11. American Whiteness: Dominant Ethnicity Resurgent?
12. Liberal Ethnicity and Cultural Revival: A New Paradigm
13. Conclusion
“[A] compelling study… Kaufmann writes with admirable detachment and objectivity, and reveals the mechanism by which the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders of the U.S. lost their political and cultural dominance. Kaufmann shows how a longstanding cosmopolitan element within Wasp ideology shifted from a symbolic role to the core of national life, and the Wasp population recast their own role accordingly. In other words, they did it to themselves… It is so refreshing to read a generous, open and positive book on this subject—what a pity that it is Huntington who has attracted the attention.” — Nicholas Cull, The Times Higher Education Supplement
“In three chronologically arranged sections, Kaufmann reinterprets the fate of Anglo-Protestants. As the most numerous early settlers and the first to create written records and lasting political institutions, Anglo-Protestants became economically, politically, and culturally dominant over the course of the seventeeth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Their self-defining commitment to Enlightenment ideals meant they tried to assimilate newcomers from beyond the British Isles, but few embraced “the idea of the American nation as truly global melting pot, much less a pan-European one” (p. 37). After 1900, however, liberal progressives, ecumenical Protestants, and New York modernists from within the ethnic group brought a more inclusive idea of nationalism to the fore. Although a less educated, traditionalist population continued to rely upon the myth-symbols of an Anglo-Protestant ethnicity, the elite turned away from these representations in favor of universalism. After World War II, cosmopolitanism was institutionalized, ethnic boundaries relaxed, and “once marginalized ethnic groups gained rough institutional parity with Anglo-Protestants” (p. 243). Kaufmann tops off his historical account with a prescription for national identity and ethnicity in today’s multicultural world, proposing “a reformed multiculturalism” that “allows for the retention of both ethnicity and individuality, all within the context of equality” — Allison Varzally, California State University
“Illuminating… Mr. Kaufmann shows how the culture of ‘white Anglo-Saxon protestants,’ or Wasps, was constructed and, from the early 20th century, gradually dismantled.” — Christopher Caldwell, Financial Times
“Eric Kaufmann’s The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America will make an important contribution to the long-sustained debate over the nature and distinctiveness of American identity and American nationality. Kaufmann forcefully and effectively locates the significant moving power that has transformed the United States from a society with a single dominant ethnic group, into one that is clearly something else, in the powerful central ideas that were present at the origins of American society.” — Nathan Glazer, Harvard University
“In the spring of 2004 veteran Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington published Who Are We?, an alarmist account of the crisis in contemporary American national identity. Huntington claimed that the values of the Anglo-Saxon founders of the Republic are today challenged by an ‘invasion’ of immigrants from an alien Latino culture. Eric P. Kaufman, a lecturer in politics and sociology at Birkbeck College, covers much of the same ground in this compelling study. Whereas Huntington wrote as a self-proclaimed ‘patriot’ and pointed swiftly to guilty hombres, Kaufman writes with admirable detachment and objectivity, and reveals the mechanism by which the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders of the United States lost their political and cultural dominance. Kaufman shows how a longstanding cosmopolitan element within WASP ideology shifted from a symbolic role to the core of national life, and the WASP population recast their own role accordingly. In other words, they did it to themselves.” — Nicholas J. Cull, University of Leicester
“Many of Kaufmann’s arguments and reinterpretations of historical periods are original. They will provoke discussion and criticism but in the process will advance our understanding of American national identity. He brings an original and fresh perspective to bear on the formation, content, and meaning of this identity.” — Desmond King, author of Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy
.~`~.