The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America

Saxton, a professor of history at UCLA, examines the history of the idea of Euro-American racial domination in the U.S. as evinced in political and mass culture--the newspapers, drama and fiction of the 19th century. Saxton's thesis--that white racism was strategic to do you mean `in the interest'? `a concern'?aa both the ruling and working classes and was reinforced by the media and literature--is supported by his analysis of Jacksonian democracy, which promoted the removal of Indians from Western lands and the continuance of slavery as a means of achieving equality among whites. Although white racism served the interests of cut to tighten long sentence. aa/ landowners and industrialists, Saxton shows howok?aa/ok/pk lower-class Americans also benefited economically, and used racism to cross the chasm that separated them from or, for clarity: `ally themselves with'? aa/stet what we have/pk the upper class. Saxton's ( The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California ) writing often is dense and convoluted, but his account of racist politics and those who strove for cultural pluralism, including ``exquisite moralists'' such as John Quincy Adams, will be illuminating to scholars in this field. (Apr.)