Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism by Ben Railton (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism by Ben Railton Brian Whetstone Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism. By Ben Railton. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021. ix + 194 pp. Note on sources, index. $36.00 cloth. The tumultuous administration of Donald Trump and ensuing initiatives to examine American history and identity, such as Nikole Hannah-Jones's 1619 Project, have produced extensive public and academic conversations about American patriotism and identity. Ben Railton's Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism intervenes in these scholarly and popular debates, tracing the history of American patriotism from the American Revolutionary era to the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s before concluding with a reflection on patriotism in the age of Trump. Railton's method reflects his background in English and American literature as he draws upon the writings and cultural works of a diverse spectrum of Americans across the nation's history, including such disparate works as Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the passionate appeal of Ponca chief Standing Bear in his 1879 trial, and the Wizard of Oz to underscore the appeal of patriotic sentiments across time. Less interested in rooting his analysis in original archival research, Of Thee I Sing works well as a broad synthesis of secondary literature on American patriotism, and Railton's accompanying Note on Sources will surely serve as a useful entry point for students and scholars of American identity looking to expand their research beyond Railton's overview. Railton identifies four varieties of United States patriotism: celebratory, mythic, active, and critical. Celebratory patriotism encompasses actions and shared rituals like the national anthem invested in portraying the US uncrit ically as the "greatest country in the world." Mythic patriotism, Railton argues, is the most dangerous because it generates mythologized narratives about the past that increasingly divided the US into communities perceived to belong to an idealized nation and "those overtly and violently excluded from it." In contrast to celebratory and mythic patriotism, active and critical patriotism constitute more constructive and inclusive patriotic impulses. The former involves active commitments to the US such as military service, social activism, and protest, while the latter stems from a desire to right historical wrongs and drive the country to live up to its high ideals for all Americans. Railton devotes considerable attention to developments in the Great Plains, particularly westward expansion, that generated expressions of critical patriotism, such as the works of Helen Hunt Jackson in the nineteenth century and the American Indian Movement in the late twentieth century. While Railton's work succeeds at introducing readers to a wide cast of historical actors, his analysis and insistence on dividing patriotism into four primary expressions tends to oversimplify complex historical developments. While characters come and go through each of the eras Railton analyzes, the four varieties of patriotism are unyielding and unchanging, presenting American history as one timeless, unchanging struggle between those who subscribe to celebratory and mythic forms of patriotism and those who place faith in active and critical patriotism. Despite this oversimplification, Of Thee I Sing still offers an important historical intervention into contemporary debates about American patriotism, nationalism, and identity. [End Page 111] Brian Whetstone Department of History University of Massachusetts Amherst Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln