Book Report: A History of the American People

This is a 1997 work by British journalist and amateur historian Paul Johnson, who died last year. You may ask yourself, “Why read a history book that is a quarter century out of date?” I’m glad you asked. Partially, it came to my library as a gift (thanks, Catherine & John), partially because it is well written, but mostly because it is out of date. Think about it: history is the process of sorting the current and transitory from the long-lasting and important. What is good today may look less so with the lens of time: bell-bottom jeans, anyone? A history book written before 9/11, Bush v. Gore, Covid, and the Trump phenomenon is unspoiled by the need to address those issues. And the truth it seeks to find can be tested against what we as readers now know, which the author could not know many years ago.

Weighing in at more than one thousand pages, this is not your beach-reading selection. I took it with me on a long cruise (more on that soon), and I easily won the “who has the most ridiculously large-sized book to read” pool-side contest. I needed an extra towel to use as a chest lectern to read the tome. Despite its heft, Johnson’s work is well-written and easy to read. He was a self-proclaimed English leftist who gradually evolved into a conservative, and he admits to having a traditional English public (meaning private/elite) school education, which was long on English history but barely mentioned the colonies with the exception of some troubles in the late eighteenth century.

He writes with the detachment of a foreign observer, but the insight of a close family member. That he was an admirer of the American experiment is clear throughout the work, but he feels free to point out the warts and all of our history. The book highlights the tensions in the American experiment: the emphasis on individual liberty and the acceptance of slavery, the democratic language hung like garland on a republican system of government, the city-on-a-hill idealism and the realpolitik of Native American policies. All through it, he highlights an important American creed: the right of the person to “get along” (his wording) by succeeding at whatever he wants to do without help or hindrance from the government. The bounty of the American expanse, especially in land, means to this day there is room for the productive person to leave behind whatever society, religion, or caste holds him back, and come to America and succeed.

Among Johnson’s most penetrating insights were:

• the unique nature of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution they created. Lost in today’s criticism of them is the fact they created not only the best, but the first written constitution, and one which has lasted the longest and been most successfully adapted.
• The importance of compromise in American success, both in political and personal activities. When Americans have been willing to accept half a loaf (metaphorically speaking), they have been most successful. When they insist on purity of thought and policy, they have failed. The original concept of the separation of Church and State lies in the former, while Prohibition is in the latter.
• The long history of partisan media, which only briefly in the twentieth century veered toward something self-described as “objective journalism” but then morphed into a elite, independent interest group. Today’s partisan media sources are actually a return to what the Founders saw as normal, even if they didn’t like it then, either.
• A similar history of political violence that dwarfs anything happening today. A good dose of history provides solid immunity to those shouting about the “unprecedented” this or that event. We’re not tarring-n-feathering one another, beating Representatives near to death in the Capitol, or loosing the FBI and IRS on political opponents. Wait, hold up on that last one.
• While Johnson’s conservative views are evident, his consistent appraisal of Presidents defies partisan approaches. Coolidge and LBJ do well, Bush ’41 and Clinton do not. He prefers Reagan to Carter, but Nixon to either. His overall positive appraisal of Nixon brings howls from liberals and progressives, but his factual account of Nixon’s record is unassailable, and while no one apparently voted for him in 1972, he won the greatest electoral/popular victory in American history, a sin for which the newly self-appointed media opposition will never forgive him. The author criticizes both FDR and JFK for widespread mendacity and libertine behavior, but gives the former his due in enacting the New Deal.

Worth reading? absolutely. There’s a free copy floating about in the library aboard the Celebrity Silhouette. Versions are no doubt in your local library or available cheap on line. One final amusing anecdote: When I considered the work’s reviews on Amazon, I noted the vast majority were positive. Some got quite excited that Johnson confused some civil war generals or the dates of specific events. But the interesting ones went like this: ‘I enjoyed this book until it got into current events, when it became clear the author had clearly lost his mind (i.e., disagreed with my views).’ All I could think of was: is it more likely a well-published author suddenly lost his way at the end of a history work, or is it more likely your views don’t have the historic pedigree you thought, and perhaps need to be rethought? Good books are like that, they cause you to think, not just react.