The Epic of America

Im amazed there is no review here of this book. This is what I just posted on my blog JohnWren(dot)com with a link to it here on Amazon: The term American dream was coined 1931 by J.T. Adams (1878-1949), U.S. writer and historian, in this book Epic of America. I found a copy of it in a used book store a few years ago for just a couple of dollars. A new paperback edition has recently been published. [The American Dream is] that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

Im a book junkie. My favorite pastime is laying in my hammock with a book. Lately Ive been engrossed by Hunter S. Thompson. A recurring theme in Thompsons work is the American Dream. We all have an idea of what the American Dream is, but where did it come from? The answer is this book. Judging by the size I was expecting a long dry tome, something Id have to fight throught. Instead The Epic of America is what a history book ought to be. It reads more like an adventure story than a scholarly text. Id read it to my kids if I had any.

What a book

According to Webster, this book was the first time the term American dream was used. At one time the author, Adams, was very popular, seems to have fallen from favor when he took the position that Thomas Jefferson would have been against Roosevelts New Deal. Seems to me the full flowering in this country of what Adams saw as the American dream is the Colorado caucus-assembly system, which has been under attack in recent years by the power elite. Next April 13th we Colorado citizens will again have a chance to choose our representatives through a system of neighborhood meetings. If we do not exercise this tool for the common person it will be lost forever. Thomas Jefferson said that we would need to have a revolution every 20 years; the Colorado caucus-assembly system provides a mechanism for doing just that without bloodshed. For more information see [...]

Traditionally, we think of the American Dream as owning a home and having a happy family, with some undefined financial success often referred to as comfortable and high-standard living. The dream aspect of the American Dream, however, connotes a traditional and national vision, despite some of the mundane aspects of the dream as it is often defined. Immigrants in particular have seen America as a promised land, with the dream as an integral part of this vision. On the other hand, some see the American Dream as an unfulfillable vision, especially those whose race, ethnicity or gender the mainstream uses as an excuse for excluding them from dreaming. Others see it as relentlessly competitive and material and ruthless. For the first time in American history, John Truslow Adams, in this monumental work, The Epic of America (1933) coined the term, the American Dream and defined it as ... that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.... It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. Adams believed that the American dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has doubtless counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes than for the simple human being of any and every class. And that dream has been realized more fully in actual life here than anywhere else, though very imperfectly even among ourselves. Despite the fact that the American dream has been often deconstructed and sometimes attacked as the dream of a white and male-centred European culture, this books offers insights as to how the concept of the American dream was born during American history. This book is a must for students of American history and American literature.

Essential reading for anybody wanting to understand the origins and nature of our national character.