The Land Of Opportunity By James Loewen

This highly regarded and scholarly book examines the fundamental paradox of freedom and the establishment of slavery in American history. The central question posed by Morgan is “how a people could have developed the dedication to human liberty and dignity exhibited by the leaders of the American Revolution and at the same time have developed and maintained a system of labor that denied human liberty and dignity every hour of the day” (Morgan 1975, 4-5). The location in Morgan’s research is colonial Virginia, once the largest slave state and home of proponents of liberty. Morgan’s detailed discussion of: the rise of race slavery over indentured servants and poor Englishmen as the solution to workforce growth, a ruling class bound to the English tradition of superiority, and acceptance of lifelong denial of human equality in the face of the fight for liberty demonstrates the paradox for the reader.

While many have described the civil war as simply the war between the States, Bruce Levine in his book “Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War” has put together an 80 year survey from around 1773 the pre-revolutionary era to the Civil War with well documented evidence of the social, cultural and political idealisms of our once divided nation. This book review will emphasize points on each of the book’s chapters which are put chronologically and particularly comparing the southern slave labor system to the free labor system in the north. Levine’s thesis statement on page four of his book reads as follows, “What impelled so many-rich, middling, and poor; white and black; native-born and immigrant- to risk and sacrifice so much? To answer such questions, this book reexamines the antebellum political history in the light of the broader economic, social, cultural, and ideological developments that shaped the lives of the American people”. (p. 4) Clearly the author of the book has researched numerous historical papers and has placed them in the direction his thesis will be provided with hard evidence from the founding fathers’ letters, written memos and of course the laws put into the United States constitution.

Well-known essayist and writer, James W. Loewen, in his essay, The Land of Opportunity, argues that the common American people aren’t given equal opportunity in this day and age. Loewen effectively convinces his readers, high school teachers and history buffs that, social class and inequality is an important thing for students to learn and understand. Through convincing logical arguments he proves that American history books are giving students across the nation false information. According to Loewen, “social class is probably the single most important variable in society.” (Loewen para. 5) He goes on saying, “From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all social characteristics of people that we can measure.” (Loewen para. 6) In addition, he establishes credibility with his audience by not accusing students or even instructors for this lack of knowledge, but clearly blames the textbooks used in high schools today. Lowen’s logical approach in exposing the lies that we are taught and taught to think leave the reader with the abitlity to empathize with him, ultimately getting the message across far more effectively.

A myth involving creation is often constructed to explain the coming of life, beliefs, and surroundings. The story, Nation by Terry Pratchett, begins with a creation myth that Mau's people have invested their time in. This tale has been told for generation after generation. In addition, it has also started the structure for a religion and culture. Certain objects that can be identified in the introduction, are objects that the islanders are familiar with. This is due to the fact that the inhabitants of the island needed a simple answer for their existence. The result, was simply to create a being of higher value, named Imo. He was the sound

In Search of the Promised Land is a book written by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger. The authors wrote this book to tell about the life of the slave, Sally Thomas, and her family. Sally had a lot of passion and drive in her life, but what fueled her the most throughout her life was the fight to give her three sons freedom. She struggled through her entire life to maintain her own freedom, along with the freedom of the rest of her family, including her sons and grandchildren. The Thomas-Raptier family had a constant concern that at any given time, any member of the family could be taken and sold as slaves. However, Sally and her family succeeded against difficult odds. Franklin and Schweninger wrote this book to show the joys and trials of blacks living in the south in the nineteenth century.

Different countries have different cultural values and traits. People with different culture have a huge difference than people in an organization. Culture is the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another (dictionary.com). In the book, "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner, he discussed the different values and traits of different countries during his journey in finding the data of happiness. In his journey, he mentioned some countries particularly Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan and Qatar. People in Netherlands have known for their tolerance, while people in Switzerland have known for their self-policing and thriftiness. In addition, people in Bhutan are different they are compassionate, they believe in imaginative possibilities, they are religious, and do not value money. Moreover, Qatar is opposite of the three countries. Unlike Bhutan, Qatar people beliefs depend on money, privilege, and luck. Indeed, culture has significant effect in people 's values and traits that causes cultural differences in different countries.

A review of “The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism”

Few topics in American history garner the attention, and generate the level of raw emotion among the populace, as chattel slavery during the nineteenth century. However, despite the importance this peculiar institution played, and continues to play, in shaping American society, relatively few people understand its history at more than a elementary level. Edward Baptist attempts to change this fundamental deficiency in The Half Has Never Been Told. Structured as a narrative, it brilliantly describes how a collaboration between white citizens of southern and northern states worked together to secure the continuation of white domination long after the Civil War removed slavery’s physical chains. While the author’s writing style and methodology is a welcome departure from tradition, and his research is commendable, his insistence that his main arguments have never been told by professional historians is dubious.

Today, many American’s are proud to identify that the Declaration of Independence marks the beginning of freedom for North America. However, as students in history classes across American schools and colleges dig deeper into the realities of the country’s battles for freedom of rights it represents that from the beginning the Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the American people. The signing of the Declaration of Independence on the face of it depicts it as liberty and democracy, but the realism is that the American colonists had little choice or no choice at all, in how the American British governed its people. It is clear, the American colonies never gave up their fight for freedom and human rights, but the British Revolution still

“The Indian presence precipitated the formation of an American identity” (Axtell 992). Ostracized by numerous citizens of the United States today, this quote epitomizes Axtell’s beliefs of the Indians contributing to our society. Unfortunately, Native Americans’ roles in history are often categorized as insignificant or trivial, when in actuality the Indians contributed greatly to Colonial America, in ways the ordinary person would have never deliberated. James Axtell discusses these ways, as well as what Colonial America may have looked like without the Indians’ presence. Throughout his article, his thesis stands clear by his persistence of alteration the Native Americans had on our nation. James Axtell’s bias delightfully enhances his thesis, he provides a copious amount of evidence establishing how Native Americans contributed critically to the Colonial culture, and he considers America as exceptional – largely due to the Native Americans.

America is the home of the free because of the brave. Most Americans know this to be true because of our current armed forces but more importantly our past. Our past militiamen and soldiers have gained us freedoms and homestead of our own religions, families, and the power to make our own decisions. Over the past few weeks I have read many different articles and a narrative by Fred Anderson, “The war that made America.”. Through all these things I’ve come to see how big of an impact our armies have made past and present. The thing people don’t take into consideration is that from the founding of Jamestown until 1785 the American colonial society was in a constant state of conflict.

As Kirk Savage illustrates in Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves, post-Civil War America was a divided, individualized nation. Yet, somehow, author Edward Bellamy, who lived through the Civil War, was able to imagine a society in which all of America’s social and economic faults of the time were perfected in his novel Looking Backward. While Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves shows readers the progression of history through American monuments, Looking Backward gives readers a look at how the American systems of jobs, currency, technology, and social equality were changed and bettered in a fictional version of the year 2000. Although Edward Bellamy’s social systems proposed in Looking Backward would

In response to “Rewriting American History” by Frances Fitzgerald, I’d know like to know just why Fitzgerald is so angry with contemporary people that are paving their own contemporary culture. Frankly, it won’t impact everyone the way Fitzgerald exaggerates. Thus—although I respect and agree with some statements—I do not share this concern that “each generation of children reads only one generation of schoolbooks”. In fact, there are many reasons as to why his argument is repugnant. This entire piece was too critical and too condemning of a reasonably flawed process.

In his essay, The Land of Opportunity, James Loewen made many interesting points; and although I didn’t necessarily agree with all of them, I still found this to be an interesting and very informative read. Loewen brought up many points which I have never heard before, and I specifically found his thoughts on high school students and their thoughts on social classes very interesting.

Ernest Renan, in his classic essay “What is a Nation”, excluded religion, race, material interests, language, military necessity and even geography as suitable answers to his question. As an alternative, he argues, “a nation is a spiritual principle, the outcome of the profound complications of history” (quoted in Mehta, 1999, p. 187). In Ernest’s remark, more than anything else, the ‘spiritual principle’ included a specific outlook toward a shared history. In this case, a nation is fundamentally founded on the possession of memories and a shared past. This is evident, as I have observed, in the Baloch nationalist movement in Pakistan, where the Baloch justify their distinctive national character by their history, which distinct them from the