Raymond Seitz
E Pluribus Unum
America, Empire of Liberty: A New History
By David Reynolds
Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 671pp £30
Dave Barry, the syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald, once observed that the authors of American history are nowadays compelled occasionally to throw in the sentence, ‘meanwhile, women and minorities were making great strides.’ Multiculturalism is the grand premise of the modern American story, and while this salient fact hardly deserves the excesses of political correctness which so often mar its treatment, it does mean that historians frequently find themselves writing parallel histories. This happened to blacks. That happened to Native Americans. Such compartmentalisation can often seem disjointed, but one thing is true: the whites-only history of the United States, on which, until the 1960s, generations of Americans were raised, is gone forever. In fact, according to the US Census Bureau, American whites will themselves be a minority by 2050.
From this perspective, the election of Barack Obama is indeed a watershed, or at least a symbolic confluence of separate American histories. And the powerful political roles of both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in the recent election also establish a historical landmark. In a year-end poll, three
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Does the monumental life of WH Auden justify yet another book?
@FionaRSampson considers the latest effort.
Fiona Sampson - Tell Me the Truth About Love
Fiona Sampson: Tell Me the Truth About Love - The Island: W H Auden and the Last of Englishness by Nicholas Jenkins
literaryreview.co.uk
Here's Michael Billington's (@billicritic) superb piece for the next @Lit_Review about Anand Tucker's film about 1930s theatre, theatre-going, and theatre reviewing, The Critic, written by Patrick Marber, starring Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton
The theatre has always fascinated filmmakers. Is this latest addition to the long list of theatrical flicks, The Critic, written by Patrick Marber and directed by Anand Tucker, a hit or a flop?
@billicritic gives his verdict.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ring-down-the-curtain