Book Look: A Fierce Discontent, The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, by Michael McGerr

 Enjoyed this readable account of America's first (of many) flirtations with Progressivism, which explores everything from politics to economics, society, and culture. McGerr never strays far from his central thesis - that the Progressive movement represented a shift from individualism ("Anything can be achieved through hard work") to collectivism ("We have a responsibility to our fellow man, especially the ones that have no power"), from Victorianism (traditional domesticity) to modernism (self-actualization), with a heavy emphasis on solidifying the power, prosperity, and moral compass of the middle class. This hypothesis provides a useful lens for contextualizing the many subtopics that this book addresses, which include:

* The Rise of Progressivism (the social and cultural forces that triggered dissatisfaction)
* Transforming Americans (the Progressives' attempts to regulate behaviour and curtail exploitation)
* Ending class conflict (their attempts to empower workers through collective organization)
* Controlling big business (their efforts to reign in the unethical practices of monopolies)
* Segregation (the extent of their many failures, and the reasons for them)
* Technology & entertainment (how the rise of individual pleasures undermined the Progressive agenda)
* How WW1 brough Progressivism to an end (at least temporarily, as the US has continually lurched between Progressivism and Conservatism ever since)

Each chapter begins by focusing on the story of an individual, before expanding to explore the wider issues and then eventually circling back to reflect on the implications on the individual whose story began the discussion, a technique that adds a level of personalization that these kinds of historical analyses often lack.

There's a staggering amount of research here, but the author does a good job of keeping things moving and resists the urge to get too far down in the weeds. McGerr lacks the storytelling chops of a Doris Kearns Goodwin or David McCullough, but I still ended up reading this whole thing in just three long sessions because the subject matter is so fascinating ... and so timely. Looking for insights into potential outcomes of our recent jarring cycle of progressivism --> conservativism? unregulated capitalism vs. social justice? nativism vs. assimilation? The impact of technological innovation on culture? Looking back to what happened in the past is always a great place to start.

Book Look: North Woods, by Daniel Mason

I read widely enough to appreciate the fact that truly original, gifted storytelling is a rare and precious thing. Daniel Mason’s North Woods is the first book in a while to join the rarified pantheon of books that surprised and delighted me.

The novelty of the storytelling makes it hard to communicate the magic of the novel in the form of a summary or book review. At the most basic level, I suppose you’d characterize this the chronological tale of a single plot of land in the remote north woods of New England, a place that alternatively serves as a refuge, home, and/or prison to a succession of organisms - human, animal, vegetable – that occupy the land over the course of generations. Mason doesn’t confine himself to narration but expands his storytelling toolkit to include everything from photographs to sonnets, vintage almanac pages to snippets of birdsong, letters, botanical drawings, journals, topographical maps - even excerpts from a tantalizingly trashy tabloid.

But in Mason’s world, time isn’t a river that travels in one direction; rather, it’s a geologic accretion, events piling up one atop the other, each stratigraphic layer impacting the shape of the layer above, with tectonic events occasionally collapsing the layers into each other. Relics abandoned by previous owners resurface, altering the paths of the lives of those who come after. Lives, loves, and secrets carve metaphorical initials in the walls of the house that appears, expands, transforms, and decays as the generations pass. Ghosts of the past – some figurative, others literal – linger and interact with the present.

Each stratigraphic layer/mini-narrative possesses its own unique protagonist, plot, and sense of period. Some of the narratives are hopeful, some comic, some tragic, some poignant. What they share in common are depths of imagination, precision, and compassion, all couched in prose that is vivid and lyrical. The members of my book club each took a stab at identifying their favorite “geological layer” – what does it say that no two of us agreed on the same one?

Mason's use of nature as a metaphor for a multitude of human experiences (hope, beauty, loneliness, exile, inspiration, refuge, madness …) is artful without feeling contrived, and sets the stage for the novel’s overarching theme, which seems to be “The only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.” A fitting motif for this tale that explores the fragility of human aspiration and the unfathomable mysteries of the universe, but also celebrates the ultimate transcendency of life.