The American Future: A History

He cites other historical figures for whom the gratuitous, bellicose use of the military seemed a “perversion” of everything democracy stood for – including Mark Twain, who saw turn-of-the-century American foreign policy as one of brute subjugation rather than the spread of freedom. His public tirades were deemed unpatriotic; Theodore Roosevelt once admitted that he felt like skinning Twain alive.

Schama’s investigation of the grievous consequences of war is not merely academic. He strikes a personal note in mentioning a small cemetery in his upstate New York town, where one serviceman’s grave is particularly meaningful. It the burial spot of Kyu-Chay, a soldier killed in the mountains of Afghanistan. Schama knew him and was friendly with his parents, the Korean owners of a local dry cleaner.

The author describes walking in one day to find the entire store covered in white flowers, along with a death notice. When he awkwardly hugs Kyu-Chay’s father, the grieving man “leaned forward, falling into the proffered embrace, crumpling into mute anguish, shoulders trembling.” It’s one of the book’s most affecting moments, and handled with subtlety and grace.

“The American Future” also delves into our long history of excess, in which having no sense of limitation is both blessing (a grand sense of adventure and exploration) and curse (relentless exploitation of natural resources in the name of progress). Although Schama claims that no candidate has ever won an election by lecturing the country on its limits, and that “such homilies may be overdue,” Obama did just that and prevailed nonetheless.

The author breezily writes that roused Americans can “turn on a dime” from their wasteful ways, and that as a nation we can “convert indignation into action and before you know it there’s a whole new United States in the neighbourhood.” His sunny, snappy generalization arguably borders on the absurd. Elsewhere, however, Schama wisely avoids such platitudes.

He’s especially adroit at studying our historical ambivalence toward immigrants, and how religious ideology has shaped our identity. (He notes that American evangelism has always puzzled “habitually secular, skeptical Europeans.”)

American history is endlessly rich and fascinating, but Schama’s travelogue makes it come alive in a wonderfully accessible way. Sure, some of his pronouncements seem a bit obvious, but he includes so many surprising moments (an amusingly candid off-the-cuff encounter with George W. Bush, for instance) that all is forgiven. Schama happens to be a marvelous storyteller, too. Never condescending, his portrait of America’s complexities and contradictions is entertaining, provocative, and above all, hopeful.

Carmela Ciuraru is the author of several anthologies, including “Poems for America.” She is writing a nonfiction book for HarperCollins.

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