![]() ![]() ![]() The darkness didn’t descend only in America. “American Midnight” is one of several fresh looks at a period that had previously received little widespread attention. “My hope,” Hochschild writes at the opening, “is that by examining closely an overlooked period in which they engulfed the country, we can understand them more deeply and better defend against them in the future.” Here are the threats, all of them crammed into the years 1917 to 1921: violence, repression, racism, paranoia, intolerance, hatred, rampant propaganda, capricious imprisonments, political polarization, government surveillance, and vigilante activity. The purpose here is prevention, so that, in this particularly perilous passage in our national narrative, we might guard against the cliché, and the danger, of history repeating itself, or even rhyming. This is, to be sure, history with a purpose, not a search for a “usable history” that seeks a past that provides comfort and moral elevation for the present. ![]()
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