failure of the promise of America

[Michael Joseph]

The following letter appeared in the recent (Oct. 23) issue of the New
York Review of Books. As John Higham came up in a previous discussion of
Pynchon's foreward to the recent 1984, I thought it might be helpful to
some to note his passing.

By Kenneth Kusmer

To the Editors:

The distinguished historian John Higham died on July 26 at the age of
eighty-two. He was the author of greatly admired and influential books,
from Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, published in
1955, to Hanging Together: Unity and Diversity in American Culture,
published in 2001. He contributed to The New York Review over the years
and was the subject of an article there by the historian George
Frederickson dealing with his work generally in the February 28, 2002,
issue.

Since he was always measured in his use of language, I was surprised at
the vehemence of a letter he sent me last February. John wrote that he was
deeply disturbed by the shift in US politics and culture "in the direction
of world domination and away from constraints on individual
acquisitiveness." He then added: "I feel that everything I have stood for
is being undermined and that I must get back to work instead of brooding
about what seems like a long-term failure of the promise of America." With
his usual succinctness, in a single sentence John had summed up the
despair and anger that many of us feel today about American society and
politics while proposing the only personal course of action that makes any
sense: getting "back to work," each in our individual way, instead of just
brooding about it.

As anyone familiar with his work would have known, this is not the first
time he set himself against the dominant tendencies in American culture.
He had a consistent moral vision that he brought to bear on a wide variety
of historical issues over the half-century that he was active as a scholar
and teacher. He leaves a major legacy of scholarship and reflection on
American identity from which there is much to be learned.

Kenneth Kusmer
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania