Week #8/Post #8
I have to say, William Robbins wins this semester's "Duh" award. Colony and Empire's basic thesis is that the pursuit of profits transformed the American West. All together now...DUH! This is right up there with "Westward Expansion transformed the American West."
OK...yes, I'm being overly reductive in my snarky attempt to say I wasn't a huge fan of this week's reading. Yes, the argument is SLIGHTLY more nuanced. Robbins argues that historians have sometimes ignored these forces, and that these forces sometimes run counter to our mythology of rugged individualism driving back the wilderness of the West to create civilizations, cities, and societies in the mountains, plains and deserts. And his point is interesting that the West was instead mostly a manipulated product of the East, a puppet that responded to the yanks and pulls of its strings by capitalists and industrialists in New York and London.
But sheesh...if I'm guilty of being reductive to prove a point, then it is only because I learned from a master after spending the week with this book. If there is anything we've learned from this course, it is that the story of the West doesn't have one box, one neat thread that ties it all together with a big, pretty bow. What Robbins is providing is an interesting collection of facts, stories, and statistics that nestle into our overall understanding of the West. Capitalism and the pursuit of profit is not, however, the single, all-encompassing narrative that explains the West, which is what I think Robbins is ultimately hoping for.
I went on Jstor to see how other historians reviewed this book. (Come on, admit it...you do it too!). I was glad to see I wasn't alone on this. Jeffery Adler had a similar reaction: "Robbins narrative is forceful but sometimes lacks nuance....Perhaps more important, in his effort to organize western history around a single theme, Robbins minimizes the crucial roles played by cultural, ethnic, racial and political conflict in the region's development." (see The American Historical Review Vol 101, No. 2, April 1996. pg 557-558.)
Unfortunately, The American Historical Review or any other publication doesn't give out "duh" awards for books that state the obvious. Maybe they should...I could write "Manifest Destiny transformed the American West" and give Colony and Empire a run for its money.
OK...yes, I'm being overly reductive in my snarky attempt to say I wasn't a huge fan of this week's reading. Yes, the argument is SLIGHTLY more nuanced. Robbins argues that historians have sometimes ignored these forces, and that these forces sometimes run counter to our mythology of rugged individualism driving back the wilderness of the West to create civilizations, cities, and societies in the mountains, plains and deserts. And his point is interesting that the West was instead mostly a manipulated product of the East, a puppet that responded to the yanks and pulls of its strings by capitalists and industrialists in New York and London.
But sheesh...if I'm guilty of being reductive to prove a point, then it is only because I learned from a master after spending the week with this book. If there is anything we've learned from this course, it is that the story of the West doesn't have one box, one neat thread that ties it all together with a big, pretty bow. What Robbins is providing is an interesting collection of facts, stories, and statistics that nestle into our overall understanding of the West. Capitalism and the pursuit of profit is not, however, the single, all-encompassing narrative that explains the West, which is what I think Robbins is ultimately hoping for.
I went on Jstor to see how other historians reviewed this book. (Come on, admit it...you do it too!). I was glad to see I wasn't alone on this. Jeffery Adler had a similar reaction: "Robbins narrative is forceful but sometimes lacks nuance....Perhaps more important, in his effort to organize western history around a single theme, Robbins minimizes the crucial roles played by cultural, ethnic, racial and political conflict in the region's development." (see The American Historical Review Vol 101, No. 2, April 1996. pg 557-558.)
Unfortunately, The American Historical Review or any other publication doesn't give out "duh" awards for books that state the obvious. Maybe they should...I could write "Manifest Destiny transformed the American West" and give Colony and Empire a run for its money.
posted by Dan Gifford at 6:01 PM
3 Comments:
Well, Dan, I felt a lot better after reading your blog. This book left me cold too, but I blamed my perennial recoiling at Marxist overkill in my M.A. readings AND my feeling of inadequacy from never have taken economics. And guess what, this was also the first of our books that made me ALSO want to go to J-Stor; the only thing that held me back was Roy Baker, who has a chokehold on me this weekend. (By the way, speaking to a fellow writer, did you find this paper exceptionally challenging in proportion to paper length and the length of the source?) I'm sure you of Agency Fame noticed that Robbins is pretty slim on granting agency to the settlers---it was always those big capitalists who changed things. Thanks again for a great blog.
So, let me get this straight. People seeking their fortunes, land of their own, and the adventure of the lifetime head West. Along the way, and after arrival, they overcome incredible obstacles just to survive, and some actually thrive. Winner or loser, unbeknownst to them as they seek their destiny power brokers in London and New York are playing them like pieces on a Monopoly board. Complete lack of agency. Their fate remains the same whether they pour their very soul into the effort, or just lay around in the tall grass.
Nope, don't buy it either.
While Robbins does have a singular focus on capitalism as the force driving westward expansion and ignores cultural, social, and other important elements in the process, I believe he makes many valid points. I think you are oversimplifying his message when you describe it as "the pursuit of profits transformed the American West." One of Robbins' significant points is that westerners did not control the development process. Instead, outsiders, Eastern and European capitalists, controlled the process because they had the capital. These outsiders exploited the resources of the west and drained the profits away. Robbins also makes a good point in showing how capitlism was a destructive force, impoverishing small landowners and laborers and damaging the environment, while it simultaneously drove the creation of major companies and industries. A third point he makes is the concentration of wealth and power among a few capitalists at the expense of the many, a classic Marxist observation but an important one nonetheless.
While the book is not well written and is fairly boring in parts, it does supplement well some of our other readings by emphasizing the dynamics of exploitive expansion in the westward movement experience. While social and cultural history may be more in vogue, economic issues cannot be left out of any historical analysis, and a Marxist viewpoint on those issues is not necessarily invalid.
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