Liberty in America, 1600 to the Present

The crucible of the new American Republic, note the Handlins, forged a new breed of man or woman: self-reliant, disdainful of authority, provincial, vain, often reckless. How did we get that way? In this second installment in a projected four-volume history, the authors suggest that Americans fell back on their own resources when state and federal governments failed to provide various forms of support and regulations that the fledgling immigrant nation needed. But that selfish, driving individualism, in the Handlins' estimate, then brought havoc and reduced the middle and lower classes to a wretched existence; free whites evaded the paradox of the unfree--blacks and Indians--living in their midst. This searching socio-political history explores hidden crevices of the past--changing family structures, newspapers, jingoism, crime, the legal system, poverty, housing conditions--among a restless people pushing ever westward. (Aug.)