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Book Review
Canada and the United States
| Jonathan M. Hansen. The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890–1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003. Pp. xxii, 255. Cloth $51.00, paper $19.00.
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| Patriotism, writes Jonathan M. Hansen, "once sustained a democratic critique of political, economic and social injustice" in America. His goal in this book is to elucidate what he sees as a particularly important and instructive example of this, namely what he terms the "cosmopolitan patriotism" held by a "group of American intellectuals" in the early twentieth century. The book focuses particularly on the thought and activities of William James, Jane Addams, Eugene V. Debs, W. E. B. Du Bois, Randolph Bourne, and John Dewey. |
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While there are enough differences among these individuals, even in regard to their ideas about patriotism, to question whether the term "group" is appropriate here, Hansen does identify some significant similarities in viewpoint among them. More to the point, his exploration of their "cosmopolitan patriotism" confronts the reader with issues that are as topical, and as vital, now as they were early in the last century. What does it mean to be an American? How should Americans define themselves relative to one another and in relation to the rest of the people of the globe? What does it mean to be an American patriot? Is patriotism inherently bad or good? |
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