Inventing the American Way: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement

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She was previously a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Winner of the Ellis W. This provocative, thoughtful work is a noteworthy contribution in US social history. She has gone a long way in investigating exactly how various constituencies sought to shape Americans' understanding of their own political culture in the middle years of the twentieth century.

Wendy Wall

One of the most informative studies yet written of the dynamics of nationalism in twentieth century America. Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley. This book dispels the central myths of modern America, showing that the consensus of the postwar era was a self-conscious effort to cover up the country's true traditions of conflict. In so doing, she contributes greatly to our understanding of mid-twentieth century political culture.

Nation, Community, and the Black Freedom Struggle. Her well-written and highly suggestive book helps reframe issues of national identity and so-called 'consensus' in the decade before and after World War II. Rosenberg, University of California, Irvine.

Her book is the first that I have seen to integrate so effectively careful analysis of how politicians, intellectuals, businesspeople, labor unions, and ethnic organizations worked--in shifting coalitions--to promote a predominant set of assumptions about citizenship and patriotism.

She provides a sympathetic but also critical account of how people coped with fear and uncertainty at mid-century. Inventing the American Way has many vital lessons to teach us about identity politics in our own times. Olson, The Journal of American History. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Academic Skip to main content.

Choose your country or region Close. She has gone a long way in investigating exactly how various constituencies sought to shape Americans' understanding of their own political culture in the middle years of the twentieth century. One of the most informative studies yet written of the dynamics of nationalism in twentieth century America. Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley "In this bold and thoughtful study, Wendy Wall demonstrates convincingly that concepts most Americans now take for granted were created at mid-century to mask deep divisions in American society.

This book dispels the central myths of modern America, showing that the consensus of the postwar era was a self-conscious effort to cover up the country's true traditions of conflict. Kruse, Princeton University "Wendy Wall's careful and intelligent study shows that post-World War II 'consensus' was an idea deliberately constructed by a diverse group of political and economic elites as well as minority-group representatives, often for competing reasons, but for the common goal of shaping national unity and identity.

In so doing, she contributes greatly to our understanding of mid-twentieth century political culture. Nation, Community, and the Black Freedom Struggle "Wendy Wall investigates the cultural construction of the term the 'American Way' and stresses the ways in which a nation fragmented by class, interest, and diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds contested its operational meanings.

Her well-written and highly suggestive book helps reframe issues of national identity and so-called 'consensus' in the decade before and after World War II.

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Rosenberg, University of California, Irvine "Wendy Wall offers a new and cogent interpretation of American identity in the twentieth century. Her book is the first that I have seen to integrate so effectively careful analysis of how politicians, intellectuals, businesspeople, labor unions, and ethnic organizations worked--in shifting coalitions--to promote a predominant set of assumptions about citizenship and patriotism.

She provides a sympathetic but also critical account of how people coped with fear and uncertainty at mid-century.

Inventing the American Way has many vital lessons to teach us about identity politics in our own times. Olson, The Journal of American History "The significant contribution this book makes is the way in which it identifies the creation and circulation of a framework of consensus as a 'political project,' one that originated as one side of an argument in teh s and then became a widely, though not universally, accepted form of common sense in teh s.

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This is an important book that reconceptualizes the nature of modern politics. The traditional interpretation privileges the creation of an American unity that resulted from the earliest trials of the Cold War and gave rise to a particular brand of American exceptionalism. That exceptionalism mixed civil religion, affluence, and core values to create the consensus of a modern America as reflected in the post-Cold War era.

The author directly challenges this interpretation and situates the American character and consensus in an earlier era, the crises of the Great Depression, rising Marxism and fascism, and a splintering society being torn apart by economic hardship.

In this crisis, Wall asserts, Americans of all political persuasions, economic backgrounds, religions, and ethnic and racial origins latched onto a single unifying "American Way" to rescue the U. Terms such as democracy, free enterprise, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and patriotism gained new meaning as the predominant set of assumptions of the era. They gained credence as a means of ensuring national coherence and identity. This is a well-crafted thesis that offers an important new perspective.

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Customers who viewed this item also viewed. The Condemnation of Blackness: As war clouds gathered, it forced the issue of economic justice that had animated the labor movement in the early years of the New Deal beneath the surface of national debate; class-based resentments could not be permitted to overshadow the existential threat posed by totalitarianism. The looming military crisis produced strange bedfellows.

It united businessmen determined to protect their managerial prerogatives from New Deal-inspired government regulation and liberals eager to include non-Protestant "ethnics" in the national polity. The agendas of both converged in an "American Way" ideology that emphasized class harmony in a growth-oriented capitalist economy and religious, ethnic, and racial tolerance in a pluralist culture and society. For one of the few times in the nation's history, a common creed united Americans on the left and right.

Inventing the "American Way"

Wall views the "American Way" with thinly disguised distaste. Much of it is justified. Consensus implies conformity, and the parameters of national values between the late s and early s were cramped and narrow. Corporate elites, in partnership with the advertising industry, employed the "American Way" to marginalize critics of capitalism and promote a reflexive Cold War patriotism that fed the fires of anti-communist hysteria. The "American Way" ethos, Wall argues, "privileged civility over equality" , and perpetuated class-based injustice through the myth of interclass harmony.

Indeed, the entire "American Way" project had the quality of myth, and Wall untangles the web of ideology, self-interest, and cynicism that produced it.

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