This sweeping history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved for those who are white and of the "right" ancestry? Gary Gerstle traces the forces of civic and racial nationalism, arguing that both profoundly shaped our society. After Theodore Roosevelt led his Rough Riders to victory during the Spanish American War, he boasted of the diversity of his men's origins- from the Kentucky backwoods to the Irish, Italian, and Jewish neighborhoods of northeastern cities. Roosevelt's vision of a hybrid and superior "American race," strengthened by war, would inspire the social, diplomatic, and economic policies of American liberals for decades. And yet, for all of its appeal to the civic principles of inclusion, this liberal legacy was grounded in "Anglo-Saxon" culture, making it difficult in particular for Jews and Italians and especially for Asians and African Americans to gain acceptance. Gerstle weaves a compelling story of events, institutions, and ideas that played on perceptions of ethnic/racial difference, from the world wars and the labor movement to the New Deal and Hollywood to the Cold War and the civil rights movement. We witness the remnants of racial thinking among such liberals as FDR and LBJ; we see how Italians and Jews from Frank Capra to the creators of Superman perpetuated the New Deal philosophy while suppressing their own ethnicity; we feel the frustrations of African-American servicemen denied the opportunity to fight for their country and the moral outrage of more recent black activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Malcolm X. Gerstle argues that the civil rights movement and Vietnam broke the liberal nation apart, and his analysis of this upheaval leads him to assess Reagan's and Clinton's attempts to resurrect nationalism. Can the United States ever live up to its civic creed? For anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic, this book is must reading.Containing a new chapter that reconstructs and dissects the major struggles over race and nation in an era defined by the War on Terror and by the presidency of Barack Obama, American Crucible is a must-read for anyone who views racism as an aberration from the liberal premises of the republic.

List of Figures xi
Preface and Acknowledgments xii
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 3
1 Theodore Roosevelt's Racialized Nation, 1890-1900 14
A History of the American "Race" 17
War, Renewal, and the Problem of the "Smoked Yankee" 25
2 Civic Nationalism and Its Contradictions, 1890-1917 44
"True Americanism" 47
Racial Dilemmas 59
The New Nationalism 65
3 Hardening the Boundaries of the Nation, 1917-1929 81
War and Discipline 83
"Keeping Pure the Blood of America" 95
Civic Nationalism in the New Racial Regime 115
Aborting the New Nationalism 122
4 The Rooseveltian Nation Ascendant, 1930-1940 128
A Kinder and Gentler Nation Builder 131
Radicalizing the Civic Nationalist Creed 139
Conservative Counterattack 156
The Survival of Racialized Nationalism 162
5 Good War, Race War, 1941-1945 187
The Good War 189
Race War 201
"Something Drastic Should Be Done": The Military's Hidden Race War 210
Combat and White Male Comradeship 220
6 The Cold War, Anticommunism, and a Nation in Flux, 1946-1960 238
War, Repression, and Nation Building 241
The Red Scare and the Decline of Racial Nationalism 246
Racial Nationalism Redux: The Case of Immigration Reform 256
7 Civil Rights, White Resistance, and Black Nationalism, 1960-1968 268
Civil Rights and Civic Nationalism 270
"I Question America": The Crisis in Atlantic City 286
"Speaking as a Victim of This American System" 295
8 Vietnam, Cultural Revolt, and the Collapse of the Rooseveltian Nation, 1968-1975 311
A Catastrophic War 313
The Spread of AntiAmericanism and the Revolt against Assimilation 327
The Collapse of the Rooseveltian Nation 342
9 Beyond the Rooseveltian Nation, 1975-2000 347
Varieties of Multiculturalism 349
"A Springtime of Hope": Ronald Reagan and the Nationalist Renaissance 357
Reviving the Liberal Nation 365
10 The Age of Obama, 2000-2016 375
Clinton, Bush, and Civic Nationalist Renewal 377
"The American Dream Come True Tonight" 385
Racial Nationalism Resurgent 393
Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump, and the Fraying of Obama's Dream 409
Notes 427
Index 505