Text Book Recommendation: Caroline Kennedy Illustrates the Poetic Nature of "America"

I now have an answer to that burning question: can one summarize American is 650 pages?

The answer is now: yes!

Is there an ideal textbook for the course: Introduction to America?

Yes!

Does that text inspire its readers to engage in the great discussions about American identify?

Yes!

Caroline Kennedy has done just that in "A Patriot's Handbook." The book is a compilation of excerpts of over 200 texts (including books, articles, speeches, Supreme Court decisions, and poetry) and illustrations, which collectively represent the American experience.

I would like to see this compilation introduced to high school and college classrooms. What makes this compilation special? It reflects the reality of the American experience without falsely glorifying it or apologizing for it. In other words, included are texts that evoke great pride (e.g. the text of the Star Spangled Banner, Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and excerpts of Alexis De Toqueville's Democracy in America) to texts that reflect that we have not always lived up to our ideals (e.g. poetry by Langston Hughes, Letters from Birmingham City jail by Martin Luther King Jr, Florance Kelley's Speech at the Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association).

It also includes excerpts from a number of Supreme Court decisions that have defined the moral questions of the day (e.g. Planned Parenthood v Casey--abortion; New York Times v Sullivan--freedom of the press; Texas v. Johnson--the right to burn a flag as part of freedom of speech.) Although it is conceivable that one could successfully go through great efforts to critique this inclusion or that exclusion, one cannot deny that Ms. Kennedy has created a book that deserves a thorough read.

Although a very small number of these texts are pure idealism, most are serious reflections on serious questions, and deserve study and attention.

Being American means being part of the discussion about what America is. It involves engaging in complicated questions about the freedoms identified in the First Amendment. Although there are common ideals involved in being part of a democratic republic seeking to maximize personal freedoms, this book makes clear that the enactment of these ideals is not commonplace formula. Instead, it involves numerous balancing acts, namely balancing the diverse interests of different groups.

In my experience, there is a tendency to segregate patriotism from addressing inequities in our social system. Thus, one might imagine that a course on patriotism must be about only the good qualities of America, ignoring the philosophical challenges, i.e. slavery, segregation, freedom of speech v. community cohesion.

This book reminds us that true love of country, involves the willingness to confront its faults and want to make it better--to make it live up to its ideals.

In her introduction, Kennedy says that her goal in compiling this book was to make it more possible for us to "return to the words that defined the challenges of our past, inspired generations before us, and offer renewed insight for our own time." She is trying to make it easier for us to converse about the concepts and content of patriotism. This is precisely what she does. I hope one day soon this book will appear on college campuses as a course book for a course on patriotism.