The Roots of American Loyalty

WHILE NO Comprehensive history of American patriotism has hitherto been written, scholars have laid the foundations for the present study through their explorations of the development of nationalism and patriotism in the modern western world. These studies arc briefly evaluated in Merle Curti "Wanted: A History of American Patriotism" in Proceedings of the Middle States Association of History and Social Science Teachers, Vol. XXXVI ( 1938). The work of Carlton J. H. Hayes, Essays on Nationalism ( New York, 1926) and The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism ( New York, 1931), together with the monographs of his students, put all who are interested in this field into deep debt. So does Hans Kohn The Idea of Nationalism ( New York, 1944), the sixth chapter of which deals explicitly with the emergence of American nationalism. Relevant to the subject are such suggestive and well-documented studies as Frederick Jackson Turner, The United States, 1830-1850: The Nation and the Sections ( New York, 1932), Charles A. Beard, The Idea of National Interest ( New York, 1934), Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny ( Baltimore, 1935), Paul H. Buck, The Road to Reunion, 1865-1900 ( Boston, 1937), Howard Odurn and Frank Moore, American Regionalism ( New York, 1938), and Ralph H. Gabriel, The Course of American Democratic Thought ( New York, 1940). The role of national feeling in American culture is one of the leading themes in Merle Curti's The Growth of American Thought ( New York, 1943).

Those wishing to explore the more philosophical aspects of American patriotism will find several books and essays of considerable interest and importance. Among these may be mentioned Thorstein Veblen An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace ( New York, 1919), Chapter Two, Floyd Allport Institutional Behavior ( Chapel Hill, 1933), Roberti Michels, "Über den Amerikanischen Nationalitätsbegriff", in Weltwirtschafliche Archiv, XXVIII

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