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HOWARD ZINN
event, he writes as if they are. In lonelier times, he was effortlessly
relevant. Now he shows all the signs of sweaty encounter with both
radicals and traditionalists - a three-way orgy which leaves no real
satisfaction. Yet, in the course of this, he presents a f.ascinating case
study of exactly what we need to think about: how does a radical his–
torian act out his radicalism (in his writing) and deal with the fact
that he is a professional historian?
In his preface, Williams tells us who agonize about the present, that
history
is
relevant. We can learn from past mistakes, because, while
things are different now, they are not that different. We can see how
certain attitudes persist, and try to change them.
All this is true, and hardly arguable on that level of generality. But
it is exactly at such a point that we need to get wary, where we nod
our heads so vigorously to general truths that the momentum keeps us
nodding while a dubious jump is made. After posing a truly important
question, the historian has a habit of moving swiftly into the details of
some piece of history, with such an overwhelming display of research,
with such occasional nuggets of satisfaction for the historical hedonist,
that the original question has been forgotten.
Thus, after making the general statement that history can be
relevant, Williams goes on in his preface to give us his theme: that
the acknowledged post-1H90 expansionism of the nation's metropolitan–
industrial leaders was preceded by (and stimulated by) the development
of expansionist thought among agrarian businessmen from 1860 to 1893.
His introductory chapter, "A Survey of the Territory," summarizes this
development, going back to the need for tobacco markets in the Rev–
olutionary period, the hunger to expand north-south-west in the War of
1812, the felt need for Gulf Coast and Pacific Coast harbors in the eigh–
teen forties and eighteen fifties, and the double effect of the Civil War:
loss of the Mississippi egress to overseas markets; expanded exports to
Europe. In the post-Civil War period, the agricultural businessman began
to organize, and all the major political issues of the next thirty years
involved his concern with overseas markets: the monetization of silver,
tariff reciprocity, naval construction, the ownership of western lands
and interventions in Hawaii, Brazil, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, the
Philippines, China.
The fifteen chapters which make up the bulk of the book constitute
an enormously detailed account of this interaction between the business
farmer's desire for overseas markets and national political policies at
home and abroad. This is supported with overwhelming documentation
from farm journals, national archives documents, the papers of national
I
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