The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation

Extract

The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation. By Desmond King. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 229p. $29.95.

A half century ago, Louis Hartz articulated how extensively U.S. political culture was steeped in Lockian individualism, a contention subsequently echoed, in a more critical vein, by the seminal studies of Robert Bellah and Robert Putnam. However, in terms of nation building, Desmond King challenges the conventional wisdom that discrimination against individuals due to some group identity has been overcome so as to realize a nation that first and foremost celebrates “a formal equality of individual rights” (pp. 6–7). Instead, he contends that “group-based distinctions” (p. 7) have always characterized U.S. nationalism and will continue to do so despite political and theoretical rhetoric to the contrary.