Foreign Policy Provcast

Samuel Goldman (PhD, Harvard) talks about his latest book, After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division, with Mark Melton, who recently reviewed it in National Review. Even though some on the right have argued that the United States needs to return to a strong common national identity to survive, Goldman argues that America has normally not had this type of cohesion for most of its history. Instead, the Second World War and Cold War created a brief period when creedal nationalism became the dominant vision, but after a couple of decades this vision began to fracture. During the conversation, Goldman explains the history of America’s national identities by focusing on three that are present today—covenantal, crucible, and creedal—and why all three failed. He and Melton also cover how times of war allowed the government to coerce Americans into adopting a single cohesive identity. For instance, despite being an American born in Missouri, Reinhold Niebuhr’s formal education was fully in German unti