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 |  Subject: Via ANCAPS: A Renegade History of the United States  Fri Oct 22, 2010 5:05 am | |
| This ultrarevisionist work is provocative, often interesting, and often preposterous. It appears to be a case of bottom-up history gone wild. The trend to view history from the standpoint of mass society is well established. Russell, a historian and journalist, has taken this approach much further.
He asserts that the driving force behind many historical developments in history was provided by so-called marginalized groups outside the bounds of “respectable” society. So Russell provides a rapid run through some episodes and social movements in U.S. history, beginning with the meeting of the Second Continental Congress.
His champions of liberty are not “respectable” men like Adams, Jefferson, and their ilk. Instead, he finds the real thirst for freedom among the drunkards, prostitutes, and slaves who mix socially and have “fun” in Philadelphia taverns. And so on through the abolitionist, feminist, and civil-rights struggles.
Russell is hardly the first historian to notice the influence of the bottom of the social strata on culture, but his constant idealization of the lives of these “free” and “fun-loving” groups means readers should take everything with a heavy dose of skepticism. --Jay Freeman
"Raucous, profane, and thrillingly original, Thaddeus Russell's A Renegade History of the United States turns the myths of the 'American character' on their heads with a rare mix of wit, scholarship, and storytelling flair." - Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good for You and The Invention of Air
“Thaddeus Russell’s A Renegade History of The United States is a work of history like no other—a bold, controversial, original view of American history that will amuse, inspire, outrage, and most of all instruct readers. Russell strips away conventional wisdom and explodes many myths. In the process, he sheds new light on ideas, institutions, and people.”
- Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History, Columbia University, and author of The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century and American History: A Survey
“Thaddeus Russell is a trouble-maker for sure. Whether you call his book courageous or outrageous, his helter-skelter tour through the American past will make you gasp and make you question—as he does—the writing of ‘history as usual.’”
- Nancy Cott, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard University, and author of Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation and The Grounding of Modern Feminism
“Thaddeus Russell has broken free of the ideological prisons of Left and Right to give us a real, flesh-and-blood history of America, filled with untold stories and unlikely heroes. No waving incense before the sacred personages of Washington, D.C. here. This wonderful book follows the best American traditions of iconoclasm and—what is the same thing—truth-telling.”
- Thomas E. Woods, Jr., author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
“Howard Zinn wrote the ‘People's History’ of the United States. But Thaddeus Russell has written the history of the American People Whom Historians Would Rather Forget: the whores, delinquents, roustabouts—the so-called bums and immoral minority who did more for our civil rights and personal freedoms than anyone could count—until now. There is no understanding of American feminism, sexual liberation, civil rights, or dancing in the streets without this careful analysis that Russell has put before us.”
-Susie Bright, syndicated columnist, author of The Sexual State of the Union, and series editor, Best American Erotica
“A Renegade History of the United States takes us on a tour of backstreet America, introducing us to the rebels and prostitutes, the hipsters and hippies. The book tells good stories, all in the cause of illuminating larger historical struggles between social control and freedom, repression and letting go. Author Thaddeus Russell gives us a new pantheon of American heroes, and argues that those who expanded the realm of desire—for sex, for drugs, for illicit experiences—were the very ones who created our liberties. This is a controversial book, but certainly not a dull one.”
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Thaddeus Russell's 'A Renegade History of the United States' succeeds on every level. It is a comical, rigorous, and incisive social and cultural history of the United States, spanning the early colonial era all the way to the Obama Administration. Skillfully utilizing a plethora of primary documents while astutely navigating and critiquing the secondary literature (Russell is a Columbia-trained historian), Russell takes us on a colorful, edifying, and enormously enjoyable tour of the underside of US history. Indeed, taking off from Zinn's people's history, Russell emphasizes that the "people" are neither homogeneous nor pure at heart. Russell in particular shows that, contrary to standard liberal accounts, history's drunkards, prostitutes, and general misfits have a lot more to do with advancing conceptual and material freedoms than has ever been acknowledged. 'A Renegade History' evokes Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America' insofar as it can either please -- or infuriate -- just about everyone. Conservatives will delight in Russell's demolition of politically correct -- but historically dubious -- truisms, but just when they're convinced they've found an ally, they'll be scandalized by Russell's celebration of radical anti-authoritarianism. Liberals will similarly be horrified by Russell's compelling and iconoclastic treatment of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, ideologues might fear this book. But those who value history, cultural analysis, and an amazing and brilliantly-told story will be elated.
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This review is from: A Renegade History of the United States (Hardcover)
What if the author of this book came back some day to apply his analytic methods and writing style to the history of the last 20 years? It might read something like this ...
The internet, originally a project of the U.S. Defence Department, had by 1995 become the notorious home of hackers, flamers and trolls. Individualists and non-conformists ruled the day. In fact, the internet had become the last, best home of fun in a repressive American society. Because of its apparent cloak of anonymity, everyone could dare to be provocative, profane, and uninhibited on the internet. They could be drunk, or at least act drunk, even while at work. They could be a girl, or at least pretend to be a girl. On the internet, Americans could live out their fantasies in public from the privacy of their keyboards. In short, they could be "black" whenever and wherever they wished, without giving up their day job.
During these years, the leading names of the internet (at least the one's the history books record) were doing everything they could to dampen animal spirits and enforce sobriety. Flame wars were banned from many Usenet groups, and flamers and trolls were often banished. Even Al Gore declaimed in an obscure Senate speech "I did not invent the internets in order to promote the greater dissemination of pornography and mindless discourse. If there is not some self-imposed restraint, I may need to consider regulation."
As it turned out, neither restraint nor regulation were needed. The internet's renegade renaissance lasted only ten years before it was squashed by a complete corporate takeover between 1998 and 2001. After that, when the RIAA began tracking down Napster "pirates", and ISP's started naming names, addresses and phone numbers of their not-so-anonymous-any-more internet subscribers, the jig was up.
But before you settle back into the comfort of your safe, corporate-controlled internet with its ubiquitous spell checking and massive NSA supercomuters endlessly sifting ever phrase you write (or perhaps auto-completing your phrases so it can analyze them before you've even finished writing or thinking them), spare a thought for the renegades, the pirates, and yes even the whores of the early internet. They're the ones who expanded our freedoms. Without their pluck, our goose would really be cooked.
ANCAPS: ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS |
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