God Bless America
Jan. 10th, 2026 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Alistair Cooke's America, by Alistair Cooke
In the 1970s the BBC produced documentary series such as Civilisation and The Ascent of Man. They decided to commission Alistair Cooke to follow in these footsteps with a series timed to coincide with the bicentenary of the American War of Independence. This is the obligatory tie-in book. The 50th anniversary edition comes with a foreword by Justin Webb, who manages to suggest that Cooke may not have been all that endeared by Trump, and offers an opinion that the US is overall a far more mundane country than headline news would have you believe. Let us hope there is something in that.
Cooke's route is chronological and begins around 1492. There is some good material on the background to European desires to find an alternative route to China and the Spice Islands, as well as on the different approaches adopted by different powers on the initial ventures to the newly discovered continent. No doubt some relativism is employed: The Spanish came as conquistadors, the French sought cooperation, the English took an intermediate approach. History is, of course, written by the victors. Later chapters deal with the shifting European and Native American alliances, the relationship between England and its colonies (and the colonies with each other, often each having a basis in a different form of Christianity) leading to war and independence; later, the march forever westwards, the discovery of gold, the problem of slavery and the Civil War. Later still, the economic miracle, the rise of the military superpower through two world wars, and its humbling in Vietnam. Inevitably, Cooke's discourse ends in the midst of the Cold War.
As might be expected for a book of this nature, its scope is broad but it never ventures too deep. Most of it has survived the test of time, I think, though the last parts don't really convey the end of history as it turned out. Some of the writing about the revolutionaries and their constitutional struggles to prevent tyranny are a little painful to read today, as is Cooke's description of the contemporary lack of trust in politics. Was it ever thus?
In the 1970s the BBC produced documentary series such as Civilisation and The Ascent of Man. They decided to commission Alistair Cooke to follow in these footsteps with a series timed to coincide with the bicentenary of the American War of Independence. This is the obligatory tie-in book. The 50th anniversary edition comes with a foreword by Justin Webb, who manages to suggest that Cooke may not have been all that endeared by Trump, and offers an opinion that the US is overall a far more mundane country than headline news would have you believe. Let us hope there is something in that.
Cooke's route is chronological and begins around 1492. There is some good material on the background to European desires to find an alternative route to China and the Spice Islands, as well as on the different approaches adopted by different powers on the initial ventures to the newly discovered continent. No doubt some relativism is employed: The Spanish came as conquistadors, the French sought cooperation, the English took an intermediate approach. History is, of course, written by the victors. Later chapters deal with the shifting European and Native American alliances, the relationship between England and its colonies (and the colonies with each other, often each having a basis in a different form of Christianity) leading to war and independence; later, the march forever westwards, the discovery of gold, the problem of slavery and the Civil War. Later still, the economic miracle, the rise of the military superpower through two world wars, and its humbling in Vietnam. Inevitably, Cooke's discourse ends in the midst of the Cold War.
As might be expected for a book of this nature, its scope is broad but it never ventures too deep. Most of it has survived the test of time, I think, though the last parts don't really convey the end of history as it turned out. Some of the writing about the revolutionaries and their constitutional struggles to prevent tyranny are a little painful to read today, as is Cooke's description of the contemporary lack of trust in politics. Was it ever thus?