Behold, America, Sarah Churchwell
Behold, America, Sarah Churchwell
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Behold, America
The Entangled History of "America First" and "the American Dream"

Author: Sarah Churchwell

Narrator: Anne Twomey

Unabridged: 11 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 10/09/2018

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

A Smithsonian Magazine Best History Book of 2018

The unknown history of two ideas crucial to the struggle over what America stands for

In Behold, America, Sarah Churchwell offers a surprising account of twentieth-century Americans' fierce battle for the nation's soul. It follows the stories of two phrases -- the "American dream" and "America First" -- that once embodied opposing visions for America.

Starting as a Republican motto before becoming a hugely influential isolationist slogan during World War I, America First was always closely linked with authoritarianism and white supremacy. The American dream, meanwhile, initially represented a broad vision of democratic and economic equality. Churchwell traces these notions through the 1920s boom, the Depression, and the rise of fascism at home and abroad, laying bare the persistent appeal of demagoguery in America and showing us how it was resisted. At a time when many ask what America's future holds, Behold, America is a revelatory, unvarnished portrait of where we have been.

About Sarah Churchwell

Sarah Churchwell is professor of American literature and public understanding of the humanities at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe and coeditor of Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers. She has also written numerous scholarly articles and introductions. Her journalism has appeared in many publications, including the Guardian, the Independent, the New York Times Book Review, Glamour, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, and Esquire, and she is a contributing writer for New Statesman.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Steve on January 01, 2019

Another ... depressing, difficult, disconcerting ... but thought-provoking and, most importantly, informative book of our times that is well worth reading. For all of my education and degrees (yes, yes, we are who we are), I never cease to be amazed by how much history I don't know, what we weren't......more

Goodreads review by Beauregard on January 16, 2019

This is a well researched book with academic rigor written for a wide audience. I used to think that fascism couldn’t take hold in America. I was wrong. This book shows the morphing of the American Dream to an American First style of fascism until 1942 and with a little post script added for its rec......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on November 10, 2019

Sarah Churchwell's Behold, America examines the long and fraught history of "America First" as expression and ideology, from the late 19th Century through the present day. Churchwell shows that the phrase's provenance, most often associated with Charles Lindbergh and other opponents of American entr......more

Goodreads review by 11811 (Eleven) on March 06, 2019

"If history is to the nation as memory is to the individual, then all history is contemporary history."......more

Goodreads review by Peter on June 02, 2018

My professional life has been spent in a field where history has had little purchase. People ignore the past and say that the future will be different, so ignoring the ideas and events that are represented or have caused current issues. Curiosity about names and labels in this field – their origins,......more

Quotes

"This is a timely book. It's also a provocative one... [Churchwell is] an elegant writer, and when 'America First'and 'the American dream'come head-to-head in her book during the run-up to World War II, the unexpected (and alarming) historical coincidences begin to resonate like demented wind chimes... Behold, America illuminates how much history takes place in the gap between what people say and what they do."—New York Times

"A fascinating new look at 'the entangled history' of 'America First' and 'the American Dream.'"—New York Magazine

"Churchwell has cast a wide net in her research, drawing into account not only politicians and pundits, but also journalists, novelists, ministers, and ordinary Americans. The result, appropriately enough, is a bit messy... But that messiness illustrates the ways in which these phrases have always been, as the historian Daniel Rodgers memorably put it, 'contested truths.'"—The Nation

"Lively and eminently readable.... Churchwell has produced a timely and clearly argued book that makes a clear case for the intellectual parallels between the first third of the 20th century and our won."—Financial Times

"Behold, America is an enthralling book, almost a primer for the ferocious dialectic of US politics, inspired by the events of 2015/16. It will no doubt take an influential place on a teeming shelf of Trump-lit. Much of its force derives from the echoes of the present it finds in the thunderous caverns of the past, blurred by the distortions of history. Passionate, well-researched and comprehensive, it is both a document of our times and a thrilling survey of a half-forgotten and neglected dimension of the American story."—Guardian (US edition)

"[A] fascinating history of the two intersecting tropes of modern America. ... The complex history of these two ideas, and the personalities of their various champions...is admirably told in Professor Churchwell's book."—Simon Winchester, New Statesman

"[A] bold first step towards the necessary reassessment of the American past in the light of Trumpism."—Eric Rauchway, Times Literary Supplement (UK)

"[A] richly engaging account of the expressions "the American Dream" and "America First"... Behold, America is enormously entertaining. Churchwell is a careful and sensitive reader, writes with great vigour and has a magpie's eye for a revealing story."—Dominic Sandbrook , Sunday Times

"The most intriguing aspect of the book is Churchwell's charting of how 'The American Dream' in the past connoted something less materialistic and more collective than is now the case... a fascinating history."—Independent

"Timely and instructive."—Economist

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