A Short History Of America – Simon Jenkins

What did not pass was another amendment proposing equal rights for women. At the same time America was seized by a bout of political hysteria. With communism having triumphed in Russia and surging across Europe, 1919 in America saw the so-called ‘Red Scare’. A series of letter bombs addressed to Congress gave rise to police overreaction against anyone with supposedly socialist leanings. Over 6,000 people were arrested, including a large number of foreigners.

The veteran trade unionist Eugene Debs was imprisoned for ‘espionage’. Twenty-four states outlawed the ‘criminal anarchism of syndicalism’. California criminalized advocacy of ‘a change in industrial ownership’. Constitutional freedom of speech was flagrantly disregarded. In the circumstances, the 1920 presidential election seemed a welcome opportunity to stop rocking the boat. The election was a classic reversion in America’s political cycles, from a period of progressiveness to one of retrenchment.

The Republicans chose a homespun Ohio senator named Warren Harding (1921–23), a small town newspaperman who emphasized simplicity. He believed in answering his own front door, even (at times) at the White House, and in riding a horse to church. Harding promised ‘not heroics but healing, not nostrums but normalcy, not revolution but restoration’, and won one of the biggest popular majorities in American history.

He brought with him to Washington a bevy of Midwesterners with a reputation for corruption. This reputation was fully vindicated in the monumental Teapot Dome scandal of 1923, in which areas of federal land found themselves in the pockets of Harding’s friends. He died of a heart attack the same year. The years of Roosevelt and Wilson were followed by an amiable stability. They indicated how far the personality of an American president could affect the nation’s political debate.

In his study of the twentieth-century presidency, the historian Stephen Graubard remarked on how easily the office transformed by ‘learned and ambitious men’ such as Roosevelt and Wilson could revert to the live-and-let-live of what had gone before. It was ‘a throwback to an older America, less interested in the world outside and less committed to establishing its credentials as a great power led by a powerful chief executive’.

The ‘normalcy’ of Harding, who died in office, was continued by his vice-president and successor, Calvin Coolidge (1923–29), who was even more a presidential minimalist. On being summoned to the White House he was working on his family’s Vermont farm.

Simon Jenkins is author of the bestselling A Short History of England, A Short History of Europe, A Short History of London, Britain’s 100 Best Railway Stations, England’s Thousand Best Churches and England’s Thousand Best Houses. He is a former editor of the Evening Standard and The Times, and a columnist for the Guardian. 1kitap1.com/en By the same author A City at Risk Landlords to London Companion Guide to Outer London The Battle for the Falklands (with Max Hastings) Images of Hampstead The Market for Glory The Selling of Mary Davies Against the Grain England’s Thousand Best Churches England’s Thousand Best Houses Thatcher and Sons Wales A Short History of England England’s 100 Best Views England’s Cathedrals Britain’s 100 Best Railway Stations A Short History of Europe Europe’s 100 Best Cathedrals A Short History of London The Celts: A Sceptical History A Short History of British Architecture 1kitap1.com/en Simon Jenkins A SHORT HISTORY OF AMERICA From Tea Party to Trump 1kitap1.com/en Contents List of Illustrations Maps Author’s Note Introduction 1.

Out of Asia (Before 1492) 2. Enter Columbus (1492–1607) 3. The English Arrive (1607–1672) 4. King Philip’s War and the Hunger for Land (1672–1700) 5. The Roots of Empire (1700–1756) 6. The Path to Revolution (1756–1775) 7. The War for Independence (1775–1783) 8. Birth Pains of a Republic (1783–1796) 9. Shaping a Continent (1796–1828) 10. The Taming of America (1828–1850) 11. The Union in Disarray (1850–1860) 12. Civil War (1861–1865) 13.

Reconstruction or Not (1865–1877) 14. The Gilded Age (1877–1900) 15. The Last Frontier (1860–1900) 16. Roosevelt and the Progressive Dawn (1892–1912) 17. Wilson’s Great War (1912–1923) 18. Roaring Twenties (1923–1929) 19. Depression and New Deal (1929–1941) 20. The World at War (1941–1945) 21. Pax Americana (1945–1950) 22. Hot Peace and Cold War (1950–1960) 23. The Kennedy–Johnson Years (1960–1967) 24. Counter-Culture: Protest and Love (1967–1969) 25. Defeat and Victory (1969–1989) 26. An Uncertain Policeman (1989–2001) 27. The Wars of 9/11 (2001–2016) 28.

The Long Twentieth Century (2016–2025) Conclusion: The Final Achievement Acknowledgements Further Reading Appendix: Presidents of America Index 1kitap1.com/en To the memory of Gayle, a true Texan 1kitap1.com/en List of Illustrations Photographs are kindly provided by the custodians of the works unless otherwise stated in italics. 1. Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde, c.1190–1260 CE. Rational Observer/Wikimedia Creative Commons. 2. Amerigo Vespucci, detail from a map of the New World by Martin Waldseemüller, 1507. Pictures Now/Alamy. 3. Secoton, Roanoke, 1585. Detail of an illustration by Theodor de Bry after John White, from Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, 1590.

Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps, Inc. 4. Pocahontas, 1616. Portrait by English School after an engraving by Simon van der Passe. Private collection. Peter Newark American Pictures/Bridgeman Images. 5. The first Thanksgiving Day, Plymouth, 1621. Painting by Jennie A. Brownscombe, 1914. Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA. GL Archive/Alamy. 6.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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