review: _Chosen People: The Big Idea that Shapes England and America_

[pynchonoid]

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-USA at h-net.msu.edu (January, 2003)

Clifford Longley. _Chosen People: The Big Idea That
Shaped England
and America_. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2002. xi +
303 pp.
Bibliography, index. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN
0-340-78656-6.

Reviewed for H-USA by Alan Hooper
<a.1.hooper at herts.ac.uk>,
Department of Politics, University of Hertfordshire

The Big Idea

Clifford Longley's _Chosen People: The Big Idea that
Shapes England
and America_ is timely in its message even though much
of its
content may seem remote to contemporary readers. The
source of this
paradox is not hard to find. Written at the time of
the events of
September 11, it can be seen as a contribution to the
debate about
American identity and exceptionalism, the relevance of
which were
heightened by those extraordinary occurrences.  The
originality of
Longley's approach, and thus its remoteness, rests in
his search for
the roots of American identity, which takes him back
to the world of
the ancient Israelites and the Old Testament, amongst
other times
and places.  To understand modern America's sense of
destiny, the
author argues, it is necessary to excavate deep-seated
(but largely
disregarded)  patterns of belief.  The most important
of these is
the sense of being a chosen people which Longley
traces through the
history of the English and American people, amongst
others. The
implications of the encounter between modern
identities and ancient
beliefs gives Longley's account its interest and
suggests a current
relevance which will intrigue and challenge his
readers.

The author begins conventionally enough with a review
of the
identities of the two Anglo-Saxon powers and the
contrasts between
them. Some of the claims here are familiar, although
not wholly
convincing: for instance, that the English imagination
takes its
inspiration from memory while American imagination
pulls from
possibility, in other words, "who are we"  as opposed
to "who do we
want to be."  This has some plausibility, but
Longley's own evidence
suggests moments in British history when the British
also have been
animated by a sense of possibility.  Longley would
have been wise to
pay more attention to Angus Calder and the "People's
war" or David
Cannadine and the "invented traditions" of the British
monarchy
rather than the prejudices of Corelli Barnett and
Roger Scruton.
Where Longley comes into his own, as a writer and
broadcaster on
religious affairs, is not with mundane history but
rather with what
he calls "salvation history," which is less the
philosophy of
history than its theodicy (p. 132).

According to Longley, such history represents "a
special category of
history most people ... are unlikely to have heard
identified as
such,"  involving a narrative whose focus is the
"interactive
relationship between humanity and God" (p. 132).  But
to describe it
thus is too bland: what is at stake for those engaging
with this
history is nothing less than a sense of providential
destiny,
attention to whose implications is a requirement of
those "chosen"
by God and compelled to fulfil his mandate. Such a
compulsion
requires a new way of looking at history: not, as with
most
historical writing post-1840 and post-Hegel with its
search for
rationality, reductive and metaphorical but
prefigurative and
allegorical.  Longley describes this approach as one
of typology or
the identification of a Biblical person, object, or
event--primarily
from the Old Testament--as prefiguring persons or
events in a new
dispensation. Longley calls it "Protestantism's guilty
secret," but
this outlook can be found elsewhere (p. 105). 
According to Longley,
recent presidents such as Ronald Reagan and George
Bush evoke ideas
(p. 105) that lie behind the conception of a chosen
people, which he
traces from the Jews to the Britain of Elizabeth I and
Cromwell to
the America of the Puritans and contemporary
fundamentalism--from
Jonathan Edwards to Pat Robertson.  But he also takes
in South
Africa's Boers, America's blacks and even Islam.  Each
has seen
itself as blessed, being God's chosen, but condemned
to the anxiety
of falling into a state of "declension" and thereby
losing God's
favor, so that election passes to another "chosen
people" (p. 156).

Being chosen has been a source of energy and ambition
for those who
retain or renew the conviction of their own
"exceptionalism."  But
Longley's conclusion appears to be that such beliefs
and the sense
of history they produce are ultimately a nightmare,
from which it is
best to awaken.  He points to ways in which the
British lost, or
abandoned, their sense of election and invites
reflection as to how
the United States might move beyond the constraining
and
coinflictual implications of their current "rendezvous
with
destiny," to adapt Eric Goldman's description. 
Longley's discussion
of the shift in the U.K. during the 1950s, from a
state-sanctioned
religion to a society-defining secularity, seems
especially
relevant.  Equally so is his powerful consideration of
the way in
which the campaign for civil rights led by Martin
Luther King could
evoke similar aspirations among oppressed communities,
incluidng
women, gays, and native Americans, so that a
restrictive sense of
chosen-ness gave way to an inclusive, potentially
universal,
solidarity. This reminds us of the liberatory
potential of religious
energies.  More generally, Longley has performed a
service in
alerting contemporary readers to the continuing
relevance of
religious belief: remote in origin, such beliefs
retain their
significance, especially given the apparent exhaustion
of secular
convictions. In identifying the origins and warning of
the dangers
of the "Chosen People syndrome," Longley has provided
a timely
message (p. 155).

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...enjoy!

-Doug


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