Crusader Nation: The United States in Peace and the Great War, 1898-1920
David Traxel
This book is admirably presented as a broad-reaching antidote to the plague of specificity that so threatens readability in history and other, related fields, and to some degree it succeeds in distilling an under-appreciated and overly simplified era in United States history. Unfortunately, however, though these ambitions for a broad scope are appropriate and occasionally successful, Traxel's effort is marred by often horrid writing, an inexcusable lack of any remotely discerning editorial eye, and an often myopic obsession with anecdotes that more often detract from, rather than strengthen, the seemingly salient points at hand. This complete misunderstanding of not only generally accepted conventions of English grammar but also of ways in which to construct, support, contradict, or even display rudimentary understanding of an argument makes the book almost unreadable at points despite unmistakably good intentions and some very good and important pieces of information buried in the muck. Traxel's attempt at a general history of the Progressive Era is appreciated, but the book lacks sufficient focus to maintain either a cohesive argument or a consistent level of exploratory depth, rendering its attempt to speak for the 22 (or so) years it covers absolutely moot and making its epilogue a truly laughable attempt at retroactive concision.
Traxel's primary problem is that the text is at several levels nearly unreadable. Most substantial works can be expected to have a number of mistakes that simply slipped by copy editors, but the level of grammatical error in Crusader Nation truly transcends reasonable levels. The book often becomes contradictory or, worse, incomprehensible on a sentence level when prepositions are woefully mishandled or missing. In the book's final chapter alone, there are at least five sentences whose conclusions were surely meant for far different assertions than those with which they began, and that these leaps occur in two- or three-clause sentences puts the oversight of author and editor(s) alike beyond reasonable explanation. The confusion engendered by this book's clumsy mishandling of narrative structure echoes Traxel's numerous lexical missteps and omissions, with the use of section and even chapter breaks particularly baffling. While some line breaks are indeed used to shift the course of action or facet of historical development being explored, others seem to be conjured of nowhere and disrupt wholly reasonable lines of inquiry; that these breaks appear in a book where so many incongruous ideas are linked in endless incongruous passages makes the entire idea of consistency laughable and will frustrate readers hoping for a glimmer of consistency. Worse still is an utter lack of understanding regarding the importance and/or use of transitions of any sort. In one particularly galling instance, one chapter's last page included a section break properly used to precede a brisk geographic and chronological departure…that was wholly ignored in the next two(!) chapters and returned to far later. It is certainly not easy to juggle a number of interrelated thematic narrative threads while maintaining a sensible timeline, but though there is no one universally efficient and desirable method for doing so Traxel ably demonstrates a thorough grasp of several terrible ways to attempt the same.
Worse still than these mistakes in general flow are those made by Traxel when deploying his facts, and the number of contradictions in this book is beyond absurd. It is to be understood that a book of this breadth, and particularly one so heavily reliant on anecdotal illustration, may concentrate on providing opposing primary source viewpoints, and the appearance of such in Crusader Nation is certainly encouraging. Here again, however, Traxel manages to take the interesting and intellectually stimulating and turn it into the incomprehensible. Historians may argue over Woodrow Wilson's opinions on balance of power in the government, and likewise his own views may have changed over the course of his lifetime; regardless, to call Wilson a firm states' rights advocate only to laud his belief in a firm, strong, and centralized national executive branch in the same paragraph is careless at best. More likely, given Traxel's enthusiasm for lending partisan credibility to a range of views, is that this and the book's numerous other insane contradictions represent a kind of hedging; what the author does not seem to grasp, however, is that a broad history may carry a certain kind of argument or viewpoint (see, for example, Howard Zinn) or may actually elucidate specific contradictory viewpoints rather than simply presenting them as equally credible and correct.
The text of Crusader Nation is similarly marred by unfounded accusations and an inconsistent use of endnotes and attribution, and though the book's representation of a number of important issues across a broad historical era will necessarily need to make some omissions, the author's choices are often bizarre. Why, for example, concentrate so heavily on journalist Jack Reed? Better yet, if the reason is, as I suspect, Reed's involvement in a number of important battles throughout the era, why not explain this in a brief introductory note or throughout the text? Rather than illuminating his decisions, Traxel inexplicably returns to the same man's experiences time and again, frustrating readers who are unaware of the reasoning behind this decision and who indeed may be justified in thinking it an accident borne of what appears to be a disorganized mind. Subjects appear and disappear with disarming rapidity, and while some subjects get marvelous treatment, other crucial events and movements of the era are neglected entirely or dismissed out of hand. Prohibition and women's suffrage are two particularly notable absences, often alluded to as the author flails away during scattered attempts for argumentation but never explained or given half of a fair shake. Why women's suffrage is only alluded to in a book that often emphasizes the increasing social importance of the gender and of some of its luminaries is, simply put, beyond this reader's understanding.
And yet, amidst the terrible writing and utter lack of organization on any discernible level, the book does have some redeeming qualities. Early attempts to represent various business and political interests surrounding the trust-busting era are handled well, if not particularly so, and treatment of some subjects is particularly illuminating. Workers' history and oft-forgotten struggles of menial laborers to unionize, often with deadly results, arise consistently throughout the book and are placed (though perhaps accidentally) in a larger context of reform and, later, patriotism. Also appreciated is an examination, however clumsily handled, of the importance of Mexican affairs on American interests during the mid-1910s, a subject not usually examined in the context of the First World War but which likely warrants far more attention than is currently afforded it in general public understanding. Nor does Traxel shy away from contentious issues, though the absence of African-Americans, rare mentions of the arts or culture, and a gross oversimplification of speech suppression after the nation's entry into the war will rightfully induce some misgivings. Most illuminating and actually worth praise is Traxel's handling of the opening of World War I as seen via Europe; rather than discarding the first weeks of the conflict as irrelevant due to geographic displacement, the book provides an engrossing description of Europe on the brink and at the onset of the most unimaginably horrifying four years the world had seen. Likewise, a focus on American neutrality remains engaging despite the familiar flaws in Traxel's authorial skills and, while certainly biased and problematic, at least provides a general framework for understanding Stateside opinion and action during the nation's (quasi-)neutral years.
Crusader Nation that are particularly illuminating, and their quality remains at a low enough level that the rest of the text is simply not worth slogging through to find them. A balance of anecdote and more strenuous analysis is well-intentioned but also fails to gain traction as the scales are inevitably tipped toward the irrelevant and overly detailed on one hand and the far too broadly sweeping on the other, proving again the author's good intentions but inability to make good on any of them. Moreover, gross errors and contradictions will appall seasoned historians and do a disservice to readers looking for a more general introduction to the period; even those like myself who are largely unfamiliar with the era and looking for a good general introduction will find many logical and editorial faults. Readers who make it to the book's epilogue will be justified in believing it terribly inconclusive as it provides running commentary on future historical trends that is not particularly tied to any coherent arguments in the foregoing text. Traxel appears to believe that a few allusions to arguments he could (or should) have constructed will provide acceptable substitutions for the arguments themselves, and the book is a failure judged by this epilogue. Plagued by bad writing and an immeasurably insufficient editorial process, Crusader Nation presents a reasonably thorough but poorly constructed and ultimately inadequate view of the Progressive Era that might appeal to the most forgiving of interested readers but whose scant successes are overburdened and far outweighed by a catalog of missteps.
Grade: D+
David Traxel
This book is admirably presented as a broad-reaching antidote to the plague of specificity that so threatens readability in history and other, related fields, and to some degree it succeeds in distilling an under-appreciated and overly simplified era in United States history. Unfortunately, however, though these ambitions for a broad scope are appropriate and occasionally successful, Traxel's effort is marred by often horrid writing, an inexcusable lack of any remotely discerning editorial eye, and an often myopic obsession with anecdotes that more often detract from, rather than strengthen, the seemingly salient points at hand. This complete misunderstanding of not only generally accepted conventions of English grammar but also of ways in which to construct, support, contradict, or even display rudimentary understanding of an argument makes the book almost unreadable at points despite unmistakably good intentions and some very good and important pieces of information buried in the muck. Traxel's attempt at a general history of the Progressive Era is appreciated, but the book lacks sufficient focus to maintain either a cohesive argument or a consistent level of exploratory depth, rendering its attempt to speak for the 22 (or so) years it covers absolutely moot and making its epilogue a truly laughable attempt at retroactive concision.
Traxel's primary problem is that the text is at several levels nearly unreadable. Most substantial works can be expected to have a number of mistakes that simply slipped by copy editors, but the level of grammatical error in Crusader Nation truly transcends reasonable levels. The book often becomes contradictory or, worse, incomprehensible on a sentence level when prepositions are woefully mishandled or missing. In the book's final chapter alone, there are at least five sentences whose conclusions were surely meant for far different assertions than those with which they began, and that these leaps occur in two- or three-clause sentences puts the oversight of author and editor(s) alike beyond reasonable explanation. The confusion engendered by this book's clumsy mishandling of narrative structure echoes Traxel's numerous lexical missteps and omissions, with the use of section and even chapter breaks particularly baffling. While some line breaks are indeed used to shift the course of action or facet of historical development being explored, others seem to be conjured of nowhere and disrupt wholly reasonable lines of inquiry; that these breaks appear in a book where so many incongruous ideas are linked in endless incongruous passages makes the entire idea of consistency laughable and will frustrate readers hoping for a glimmer of consistency. Worse still is an utter lack of understanding regarding the importance and/or use of transitions of any sort. In one particularly galling instance, one chapter's last page included a section break properly used to precede a brisk geographic and chronological departure…that was wholly ignored in the next two(!) chapters and returned to far later. It is certainly not easy to juggle a number of interrelated thematic narrative threads while maintaining a sensible timeline, but though there is no one universally efficient and desirable method for doing so Traxel ably demonstrates a thorough grasp of several terrible ways to attempt the same.
Worse still than these mistakes in general flow are those made by Traxel when deploying his facts, and the number of contradictions in this book is beyond absurd. It is to be understood that a book of this breadth, and particularly one so heavily reliant on anecdotal illustration, may concentrate on providing opposing primary source viewpoints, and the appearance of such in Crusader Nation is certainly encouraging. Here again, however, Traxel manages to take the interesting and intellectually stimulating and turn it into the incomprehensible. Historians may argue over Woodrow Wilson's opinions on balance of power in the government, and likewise his own views may have changed over the course of his lifetime; regardless, to call Wilson a firm states' rights advocate only to laud his belief in a firm, strong, and centralized national executive branch in the same paragraph is careless at best. More likely, given Traxel's enthusiasm for lending partisan credibility to a range of views, is that this and the book's numerous other insane contradictions represent a kind of hedging; what the author does not seem to grasp, however, is that a broad history may carry a certain kind of argument or viewpoint (see, for example, Howard Zinn) or may actually elucidate specific contradictory viewpoints rather than simply presenting them as equally credible and correct.
The text of Crusader Nation is similarly marred by unfounded accusations and an inconsistent use of endnotes and attribution, and though the book's representation of a number of important issues across a broad historical era will necessarily need to make some omissions, the author's choices are often bizarre. Why, for example, concentrate so heavily on journalist Jack Reed? Better yet, if the reason is, as I suspect, Reed's involvement in a number of important battles throughout the era, why not explain this in a brief introductory note or throughout the text? Rather than illuminating his decisions, Traxel inexplicably returns to the same man's experiences time and again, frustrating readers who are unaware of the reasoning behind this decision and who indeed may be justified in thinking it an accident borne of what appears to be a disorganized mind. Subjects appear and disappear with disarming rapidity, and while some subjects get marvelous treatment, other crucial events and movements of the era are neglected entirely or dismissed out of hand. Prohibition and women's suffrage are two particularly notable absences, often alluded to as the author flails away during scattered attempts for argumentation but never explained or given half of a fair shake. Why women's suffrage is only alluded to in a book that often emphasizes the increasing social importance of the gender and of some of its luminaries is, simply put, beyond this reader's understanding.
And yet, amidst the terrible writing and utter lack of organization on any discernible level, the book does have some redeeming qualities. Early attempts to represent various business and political interests surrounding the trust-busting era are handled well, if not particularly so, and treatment of some subjects is particularly illuminating. Workers' history and oft-forgotten struggles of menial laborers to unionize, often with deadly results, arise consistently throughout the book and are placed (though perhaps accidentally) in a larger context of reform and, later, patriotism. Also appreciated is an examination, however clumsily handled, of the importance of Mexican affairs on American interests during the mid-1910s, a subject not usually examined in the context of the First World War but which likely warrants far more attention than is currently afforded it in general public understanding. Nor does Traxel shy away from contentious issues, though the absence of African-Americans, rare mentions of the arts or culture, and a gross oversimplification of speech suppression after the nation's entry into the war will rightfully induce some misgivings. Most illuminating and actually worth praise is Traxel's handling of the opening of World War I as seen via Europe; rather than discarding the first weeks of the conflict as irrelevant due to geographic displacement, the book provides an engrossing description of Europe on the brink and at the onset of the most unimaginably horrifying four years the world had seen. Likewise, a focus on American neutrality remains engaging despite the familiar flaws in Traxel's authorial skills and, while certainly biased and problematic, at least provides a general framework for understanding Stateside opinion and action during the nation's (quasi-)neutral years.
Crusader Nation that are particularly illuminating, and their quality remains at a low enough level that the rest of the text is simply not worth slogging through to find them. A balance of anecdote and more strenuous analysis is well-intentioned but also fails to gain traction as the scales are inevitably tipped toward the irrelevant and overly detailed on one hand and the far too broadly sweeping on the other, proving again the author's good intentions but inability to make good on any of them. Moreover, gross errors and contradictions will appall seasoned historians and do a disservice to readers looking for a more general introduction to the period; even those like myself who are largely unfamiliar with the era and looking for a good general introduction will find many logical and editorial faults. Readers who make it to the book's epilogue will be justified in believing it terribly inconclusive as it provides running commentary on future historical trends that is not particularly tied to any coherent arguments in the foregoing text. Traxel appears to believe that a few allusions to arguments he could (or should) have constructed will provide acceptable substitutions for the arguments themselves, and the book is a failure judged by this epilogue. Plagued by bad writing and an immeasurably insufficient editorial process, Crusader Nation presents a reasonably thorough but poorly constructed and ultimately inadequate view of the Progressive Era that might appeal to the most forgiving of interested readers but whose scant successes are overburdened and far outweighed by a catalog of missteps.
Grade: D+
No comments:
Post a Comment