Loaded History

THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY (513 pp.)--William Appleman Williams--World Publishing ($7.50).

America's grandchildren, says Khrushchev, will live under socialism. Professor William Appleman Williams of the University of Wisconsin can hardly wait--although socialism to him has a different meaning than to the Soviet boss. After a long and transparently loaded survey of U.S. history, his book asks a final question in academic gobbledygook: Is the nation really forced into a choice between "government by a syndicalist oligarchy relying on expansion" (roughly, the U.S. Progressive-New Deal movement) and "government by a class-conscious industrial gentry" (paternalistic capitalism)? Historian Williams' answer: There is a third possibility, and the U.S. ought to create it: namely, "the first truly democratic socialism in the world."

Williams, an unlikely product of the U.S. Naval Academy, is described by his publishers as one of the nation's "most influential young historians." If this is true, the shortcomings of U.S. education derive from more important factors than cramped classrooms and low teacher salaries.

Laissez Nous Faire. These are the contours of U.S. history as seen by Williams: from colonial days on, the American experience has been determined, broadly, by good guys and greedy guys. The good ones, notably John Adams, James Madison and John Calhoun, sought to establish a "corporate Christian commonwealth," in which all could prosper while restraining the greed of the few. Unfortunately, even the good guys were not willing to give up private property.

As for the greedy ones, when they were in power, says Williams, Christian principles did not have a prayer. One of their principal sins was wild territorial expansion, such as smirched Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin ("It is difficult to think of Franklin as a scientist if only because he invested so much time and intelligence in land speculation"). This expansionist drive brought on the Civil War as well as World War II, says Williams, and has been checked now only because Russia has nuclear bombs. Other sins of the greedy guys: the policy of "laissez nous faire," carried on in the name of individualism but really to line the pockets of financial buccaneers, and "Corporation Capitalism," which has given the U.S. an "industrial gentry" unmotivated by "socialism of the heart."

Utopian Stars. Expansion west to the Pacific, as Williams sees it, was an escape hatch for a country unwilling to face its problems. And when the U.S. gave out territorially, Americans greedily tried for a share of the overseas market. Even poor old Walt Whitman has to share the blame, because he applauded "personal regeneration." When confronted by a problem, Whitman walked away, as many of his heirs from Mark Twain to William Faulk ner were to do, and became "a wayfarer down the open road."

Bit by carefully selected bit, Professor Williams "marshals evidence" to show that practically all that has gone into the making of his country has been disastrous. One would hardly suppose that some of the problems were contributed by forces other than native greed. Not even the welfare state pleases him, and Pragmatist John Dewey and "Heretic" Theologian Niebuhr are plainly part of the enemy camp. Socialist Eugene Debs is, in the end, the American hero, and with him Professor Williams links Christ, Marx and Freud, who "quite understood the vital function of a Utopia . . . They put stars in their philosophic sky."

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