The Contours of American History

It is very much part of an established American tradition to condemn anyone who stands against the herd, only for the actual work to be reexamined and taken more seriously long after most people have stopped caring. But Williams was far from a typical progressive. He was a registered Republican when he first came to Wisconsin. He voted for Nixon as the lesser evil in He is a sister and a brother to those who use old steel to make a zipper, as contrasted with those who add new elements to make a better steel. In my previous Modern Library essay, I castigated Herbert Croly for the historical developments that he could not see ahead of him, for erring too much in his perfervid belief in a central government and for diminishing the justifiable grievances of protesters.

William Appleman Williams may very well represent the opposite problem: The Open Door Policy, for all of its flaws and its needless sullying of China, was intended to provide a peacefully imperialist framework for a burgeoning American empire: Rebellion would come later in Beijing with the May Fourth movement.

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The ostensible goal was to strengthen China with fresh influxes of low-risk private capital so that it could withstand troublesome neighbors looking for a fight, even as the new obligations to American entrepreneurs forged hot rivulets of cash rolling back to the imperialist homeland. From the vantage point of the 21st century, this useful historical interpretation reveals Wilson to be a pioneer in the kind of venal and now all too commonplace globalization that morally bankrupt neoliberals like Thomas Friedman have no problem opening their old steel zippers for.

Williams traced the origins of our mercantilist approach to Anthony Ashley Cooper , the Earl of Shaftesbury.

Off Dead Center: William Appleman Williams

In the 17th century, Shaftesbury was a political figure who opposed harsh penalties and absolutist government. He stood up for the nonconformists and called for regular parliaments, and would go on to found and lead the early Whig party in the wake of the British Exclusion Crisis. While traveling to Oxford to remove an abscess from his liver, he hit it off with a young doctor by the name of John Locke. In the s, you had to take whatever mingling opportunities you could get. Locke, of course, would later have many ideas about the social contract, a scheme about inalienable natural rights that would eventually find its way into a number one ditty penned by Jefferson that would become known as the Declaration of Independence.

But there was a twist to this tale. Locke believed that those who owned property were perfectly justified in protesting their government, for they were the ones who had entered into a social contract.

Macpherson in his book, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism , though it is not universally accepted. This useful Locke breakdown outlines a few alternative interpretations, including an eccentric tomato juice metaphor from the epistemological philosopher Robert Nozick. Williams has, rather inconveniently, opted not to quote the Lockean passage that would make his argument on this point more airtight. But the many examples Williams provides throughout Contours suggest very strongly that, whether fueled by Locke or not, this nation continues to subscribe to a clear set of expansionist parameters riffing off the mercantilist Weltanschauung.

And the way of sustaining such a benevolent national juggernaut was through the establishment of an empire: Against this backdrop, post-Revolutionary expansion and the Monroe Doctrine allowed mercantilism to transmute into an idea that was more about the grab than the munificent results, with visions of empire dancing in many heads. Ogden decision regulating interstate commerce, against the monopolies that would come to dominate America near the turn of the century.

The Contours of American History

Warren Bridge decision , permitting states to alter any contract as it saw fit. Rather curiously, for all of his sharp observations about free trade and expansionist dangers during this time, Williams devotes little more than a paragraph to the closing of the Second Bank of the United States:. Your request to send this item has been completed. Citations are based on reference standards. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study.

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The Contours Of American History

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The Contours of American History by William Appleman Williams

The contours of American history. William Appleman Williams Publisher: Subjects United States -- History -- Philosophy. More like this User lists Similar Items. Allow this favorite library to be seen by others Keep this favorite library private. Find a copy in the library Finding libraries that hold this item History Additional Physical Format: