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Loading... Flight of the WASP: The Rise, Fall, and Future of America’s Original Ruling Classby Michael Gross
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  deusvitae | Jul 15, 2023 |  no reviews | add a review
"Fifteen families. Four hundred years. The complex saga of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite in America's history. For decades, writers from Cleveland Amory to Joseph Alsop to the editors of Politico have proclaimed the diminishment of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, who for generations were the dominant socio-cultural-political force in America. While the WASP elite has, in the last half century, indeed drifted from American centrality to the periphery, its relevance and impact remain, as MichaelGross reveals in his compelling chronicle of the WASPs in our history. From Colonial America's founding settlements through the Gilded Age to the present day, Gross traces the complicated legacy of American WASPs-their profound accomplishments and egregious failures-through the lives of fifteen influential individuals and their very privileged, sometimes intermarried families. As the Bradford, Randolph, Morris, Biddle, Sanford, Peabody, and Whitney clans, among others, progress, prosper, and stumble, defining aspects in the four-century sweep of American history emerge: our wide, oft-contentious religious diversity; the deep scars of slavery, genocide, and intolerance; the creation and sometime misuse of astonishing economic, political, and social power;an enduring belief in the future; an instinct to offset inequity with philanthropy; an equal capacity for irresponsible, sometimes wanton, behavior. "American society was supposed to be different," writes Gross, "but for most of our history we have had apatriciate, an aristocracy, a hereditary oligarchic upper class, who initiated the American national experiment." In previous acclaimed books such as 740 Park and Rogues' Gallery, Gross has explored elite culture in microcosm; expanding the canvas, Flight of the WASP chronicles it across four centuries and fifteen generations in an ambitious and consequential contribution to American history"-- No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)305.80973Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Ethnic and national groups ; racism, multiculturalism GeneralLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4)
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Wikipedia in English
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The main characters are William Bradford, Gouvernour Morris, John Randolph of Roanoke, Lewis Cass, Nicholas Biddle, Henry Shelton Sanford, the Peabodies, the Rutherfurds, the Whitneys, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Michael Butler. The author well weaves the tale of such people: how they succeeded, how they failed, what motivated them, and not only how they would be remembered, but how their descendants would maintain a type of aristocratic standing in American society and all that represented.
From this work one can perceive the tight-knit community of highly influential people in the northeast and mid-Atlantic states, a group which seems almost incestuous at times, and one can see how they maintain their influence and privilege through their connections, education, marriages, and job opportunities. Furthermore, one can perceive how many had some decently healthy conception of reality, but how many others seemed entirely subsumed within their bubble.
The concluding chapter informs us of the fate of the descendants of our main characters and offers what I felt to be the unearned conclusion of how there is a lot of nobility in the aspirations of the WASP and we in American society are worse off by not having them. It is not as if such a case could not be made; but a lot of what is set forth in the narrative would equally demonstrate how it was important and good to break the WASP aristocracy. The author has done excellent research and has told compelling stories, but the author did not put in the analytical work which would justify his conclusion.
Still a fascinating read. (