April Not Fiction Book Discussions

With The Men Who United the States: America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible by Simon Winchester, we continue our discussion of what holds us together as a nation and what forces have the potential to tear us apart. In his Preface, Winchester tell the reader that his book is "a meditation on the nature of this American unity, a hymn to the creation of oneness, a parsing of the rich complexities that lie behind the country's so-simple-sounding motto: E pluribus unum" (xvi). Trained as a geologist, he focuses especially on "what might be called the physiology and the physics of the country, the strands of connective tissue that have allowed it to achieve all it has, and yet to keep itself together while doing so. For the ties that bind are most definitely, in their essence, practical and physical things" (xviii). He recounts the work of explorers, inventors, and businessmen who have linked the geographical United States by canal, rail, highway, telegraph, and Internet.

Winchester chooses to emphasize what holds us together in his book, even though the events he describes are part of the somewhat discredited notion of American exceptionalism, the belief that it is America's Manifest Destiny to subdue the North American continent, a belief that continues to influence its foreign policy initiatives today. An interviewer for The Daily Beast asked him, "You became an American citizen two years ago. How did that influence your decision to write this book?" He replied, "I had long thought that America, on this particular part of its history, has been particularly hard on herself. As I was approaching the time to write the book, it was also the time of the financial meltdown, the Bush presidency--a number of things that made America, a large chunk of itself at least--feel disillusioned with itself and its standing in the world. I wanted essentially to say, I threw my lot in with this country because I believed in what it stands for. I wanted to write a book that, in essence, reminded everybody what a great experiment the United States is."

A critic for The New York Times notes that "When people are smitten, they are blind to flaws in their beloved. Winchester is no exception, and this book is less a history than a love letter," while a critic for the Globe and Mail says The Men Who United the States is a "foundation myth" about "the greatness of American enterprise, and the verve and dazzle of that nation's rise to power." What do you think? Should Winchester be more critical of America as a capitalist enterprise? Of the roll of big government in establishing and maintaining America's infrastructure? Should he devote more space to a consideration of the role of women and minorities in the development of the nation?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, April 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, April 17, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.