Book Review: Strangers in the Land

Overview

Historian John Higham, in his own words, aimed to provide “a semi autonomous scope for belief and emotions” with his book Strangers in the Land. This was a unique goal at the time, as many historians preferred remaining objective in the face of human emotional culture, and still do. Higham advocated for moral engagement within historical analysis. That is what made his work so groundbreaking. However, his thesis is not solely based on the scope of beliefs and emotions; he classified them as cultural factors in history worthy of consideration. The main thesis of the book surrounds the concept of nativism; a subgenre of nationalism, it is the fear of outsiders disrupting the dominant culture of the nation. Higham argued that nativism is rooted in ideas like anti-catholicism, anti-immigration, and racism. The way this concept spread or remained contained depended on economic, political, and cultural factors of the time. In essence, nativism has a “double it and pass it on” quality to it. 

“The resumption of immigration, the onset of depression, a wave of crime – each of these formed a part of a social pattern shaped by a return to peace, and all three had precedents in the circumstances of earlier peacetime eras in which nativism flourished.”

Higham, John. “Chapter Ten: The Tribal Twenties.” Essay. In Strangers in the Land, 268. Eighth Paperback Printing, 2008. New Brunswick , NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955.

The monograph analyzed the effects of nativist conviction on the United States of America during years 1860-1925. Chapter ten of the book specifically hones in on the 1920s, the chapter is titled, “The Tribal Twenties.” In summary, Higham delineated the 1920s as an unstoppable culmination of nativist and nationalist beliefs. He did an excellent job highlighting the sheer hypocrisy and irony of those convicted in nativism. The interpretation of the 1920s within this chapter is largely applicable in today’s society. Overall Strangers in the Land has not yet been majorly challenged by other scholars. On the contrary it has been continuously built upon.

Significance

During the 1950s, the consensus perspective dominated historiography scholarship. The aim of consensus historiography was preserving traditional viewpoints and emphasizing unity through American values. This era witnessed the civil rights movement which combatted the narrative consensus historiography pushed. The social conflict of the 1950s provoked much thought amongst historians and other scholars. In Higham’s case specifically, bearing witness to the effects social conditions had on his present reality ignited reflection into the social conditions of the civil war through to the roaring twenties. He was not alone in his reflection, however his analysis is by far the most profound. He was a progressive historian within a field dominated by conservative historians. 

“The Klan’s snowballing advance in the early twenties paralleled the upthrust of racial nativism in public opinion generally. And within the order an insistence on preserving the superiority of the old Anglo-Saxon stock over foreigners of every description became pronounced.”

Higham, John. “Chapter Ten: The Tribal Twenties.” Essay. In Strangers in the Land, 291. Eighth Paperback Printing, 2008. New Brunswick , NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955.

For instance, Higham analyzes the conception of the KKK or “the Klan” and the role they played in 1920s American society. He describes them as home grown terrorists without specifically using those terms. What’s considered profound about his take in this instance, in the opinion of this author, is how the rise of the Klan was more or less a direct result of post WWI social conditions. Higham illustrated this claim through other circumstances throughout chapter ten, but his focus on the KKK demonstrates the universal quality of his thesis. Higham’s dissection of the KKK in the 1920s served to illustrate another extreme way nativism re-emerged and immensely impacted society. It simultaneously provided context for 1950s America, in the thick of the civil rights movement. Conservative consensus historians of the 1950s aimed to unite the American public by enforcing a narrative which overlooked the dark, negative aspects of past American societies that Higham desired to highlight. It’s no coincidence that his analysis begins with the Civil War. 

“The secret of their success, however, lay essentially in the mood and circumstances of 1920. The whole complex of factors – depression, prohibition, and immigration; disillusion, isolationism, and reaction- that shunted 100 percent Americanism into the older nativistic channels contributed to the Klan’s growth.”

Higham, John. “Chapter Ten: The Tribal Twenties.” Essay. In Strangers in the Land, 289. Eighth Paperback Printing, 2008. New Brunswick , NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955.

Bringing Higham’s thesis on nativism further, the points made in this monograph are food for thought as the “Alt-Right” is rising in the United States. Nativist, anti-immigration, racist sentiments are building up again within American society. In a way Higham predicted this, as mentioned earlier nativism has a “double it and pass it on” quality. It will go away for a while and re-emerge stronger than before. Readers seeking deeper understanding of the 1920s, or any era of American history from 1860 to the present, will get just that through the concepts presented within Strangers in the Land.

Bibliography

Bodnar, John. Review of Culture without Power: A Review of John Higham’s Strangers in the Land, by John Higham. Journal of American Ethnic History 10, no. 1/2 (1990): 81 http://www.jstor.org/stable/27500801.

Higham, John. “Chapter Ten: The Tribal Twenties.” Essay. In Strangers in the Land, 264–99. Eighth Paperback Printing, 2008. New Brunswick , NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955.