Who We Are: America's Fight for Universal Progress, from Franklin to Kennedy

This book is a tour-de-force review of American history from Ben Franklin to Abraham Lincoln. I am very much looking forward to Volume 2 which will cover Lincoln to JFK. Chaitkin is a master historian who has produced a highly readable book. I can’t put it down. Anyone interested in the real history of industrial development, both in the US and internationally, should read this book. What Ha-Joon Chang is to economics, Anton Chaitkin is to history, offering a vitally important “third way” in a profession dominated by the false dichotomy between British Free Trade and Marxism. The American System is that third way, both protectionist and industrial-capitalist. From the standpoint of history, not ideology, it is demonstrably the most effective method for bringing peace, prosperity and progress to humanity, and it needs a thousand more books like this singing its praises.

This brilliant book is revelation upon revelation. Who knew of earlier U.S. struggles of justice vs. empire/bribery/slavery, or that Benjamin Franklin’s 1771 visit to Ireland had such profound consequences for Ireland and the United States? Who knew Irish Catholic Matthew Carey, a writer at fifteen for the Irish patriots’ Hibernian Journal, became a writer for Franklin in Paris, and from there to Philadelphia where he played key roles thenceforth in shaping the American System in close association with Alexander Hamilton and others?

Anton Chaitkin is an intrepid researcher. His book Treason in America is on my top ten for anyone who wants to understand the true nature of American history.

With his new offering, Chaitkin reminds us of the great promise that America offers to the world as a beacon of light, no matter how dark things get.