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Over the past couple of decades in America, the enduring, complicated divides of ideology, geography, party, class, religion, and race mutated into something deeper and more ominous. America now houses two distinct tribes, generally balanced in political power, fighting not just to advance their own side, but also to poke, prod, and defeat the other. The opposition between these tribes drowns out their love of country, each side scanning current events to advance their tribe¿s aims and narrative rather than the nation¿s. Recent survey data provides troubling evidence that Americans of both political parties sense the unraveling of a broadly shared consensus of American identity, and about seven in ten Republicans and Democrats fear that the United States is losing its national identity. Our country has lost its ¿story¿ ¿ the narrative that unites us around a common multi-generational project and gives an overarching sense of meaning and purpose to our history. Too often modern American history and political commentary ignores a grand narrative and instead focuses on a series of power conflicts between oppressor and oppressed. With contributions from leading thinkers drawing on expertise within their fields, Our American Story: The Search for a Shared National Narrative, edited by Joshua Claybourn, offers a series of essays providing a framework for the American story. Drawing on their backgrounds as lawyer, historians, and public officials, each contributor will approach it with a unique perspective. Our American Story seeks to feature provocative essays taking up the arduous task of weaving a new national narrative in which all Americans can see themselves.
List of contents
Introduction
Joshua A. Claybourn
Part 1: Building Blocks of a National Narrative
1. Composite Nation?
David W. Blight
2. National Narratives as Habits of Thought
James V. Wertsch
3. The Plastic Age
Jason Kuznicki
4. In Pursuit of an Idea: America’s Ongoing Quest
Ali Wyne
Part 2: Conceptual Unifying Narratives
5. Can the United States Be One People?
Gordon S. Wood
6. Holding Ourselves Together
John C. Danforth
7. Society and Service
Jim Banks
8. The Story of Us: Community Cohesion
Cherie Harder
9. An American Community
Nikolas Gvosdev
10. A Dream for Anyone and Everyone
Markos Moulitsas
11. Foot-Voting Nation
Ilya Somin
12. Transatlantic Perspectives
Spencer P. Boyer
Part 3: Stories as the Basis for Narrative
13. Embattled Farmers
Cass R. Sunstein
14. America as a Social Movement
Eleanor Clift
15. Yankee Ingenuity
Gerard N. Magliocca
Part 4: Skeptical Approaches to an American Story
16. American Minimalism: Why No Robust Account of National Identity Is Possible—or Desirable
Richard A. Epstein
17. One Nation Divisible
Alan Taylor
18. America’s Broken Narrative of Exceptionalism
Cody Delistraty
List of Contributors
About the author
Joshua A. Claybourn is an author and attorney working primarily with governmental entities and elected officials. His work has appeared in USA Today, the Hill, the American Spectator, National Review Online, American Thinker, and World Magazine, as well as numerous regional publications. On television he has commented on current events on CNN and MSNBC.
Summary
With contributions from leading thinkers drawing on expertise within their fields, this book offers a series of essays providing a framework for the American story.
