Fortress America: How We Embraced Fear and Abandoned Democracy

by Elaine Tyler May Narrated by Kevin Stillwell

Overview

An award-winning historian argues that America's obsession with security imperils our democracy in this "compelling" portrait of cultural anxiety (Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time).

For the last sixty years, fear has seeped into every area of American life: Americans own more guns than citizens of any other country, sequester themselves in gated communities, and retreat from public spaces. And yet, crime rates have plummeted, making life in America safer than ever. Why, then, are Americans so afraid-and where does this fear lead to?

In this remarkable work of social history, Elaine Tyler May demonstrates how our obsession with security has made citizens fear each other and distrust the government, making America less safe and less democratic. Fortress America charts the rise of a muscular national culture, undercutting the common good. Instead of a thriving democracy of engaged citizens, we have become a paranoid, bunkered, militarized, and divided vigilante nation.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 10/23/2017
May (America and the Pill), a University of Minnesota history professor, provides valuable historical and cultural context for the current political moment with this sweeping and detailed examination of how Americans came to perceive the world as overwhelmingly dangerous. She begins with the Cold War, pinpointing fears of nuclear war as having motivated a shift of responsibility for security away from the government and toward individuals, who were encouraged to transform their private homes into shelters, or “fortresses,” capable of withstanding atomic fallout. That mind-set was accompanied by a more general movement away from communal engagement and toward “hunkering down” in isolation. She methodically dissects and debunks the rampant fearmongering, whether by alarmist politicians or violent Hollywood thrillers, that has led to hyperbolic views of the threats Americans actually face. While May is far from the first to question how likely it is that the average citizen will be the victim of a terrorist, few have been as effective at connecting the broad sweep of 20th-century U.S. history to modern-day policies, such as broadly defined gun rights and highly aggressive and punitive law enforcement. This is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the anxieties that occupy American politics. (Dec.)

From the Publisher

"May...traces how a growing preoccupation with vigilance and safety shaped American culture and prompted millions of people to invest in 'security measures that did not make them any safe.'"—New Republic

"If you feel shockingly high anxiety these days, and wonder why it got this way, Elaine Tyler May's Fortress America: How We Embraced Fear and Abandoned Democracy offers some answer...[May] puts much of the blame on an axis of anxiety including politicians, big media and entertainment, and an array of profiteers ranging from gun makers to security firms."—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Elaine Tyler May...explores how the United States got to this point of paranoia and how Americans made themselves prisoners in a world where security precaution is not just an industry but a lifestyle.... The irony that May captures is that Americans have more to fear now than they ever have: they are just fretting over the wrong things."—Australian Book Review

"May... argues that the pervasive dread of the Cold War never really ended but metastasized into the American consciousness, particularly fear of cities and racial conflict."—Public Books

"This thoroughly researched and thoughtfully written social history is recommended to all who seek to understand our divided society."—Library Journal

"A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the anxieties that occupy American politics."—Publishers Weekly

"In making a solid case for our country's overinvestment in personal and national security, May asks a germane question: are we focusing on the right threats?"—Kirkus Reviews

American Scholar
"[May's] style is brisk and catholic, and no cultural artifact is too minute to catch her eye. The effect is like watching one gem of cultural trivia after another shaken loose from an ephemeral recent past."

"Challenging and provocative, Fortress America will stir stimulating debate in the classroom and in the living room about the state of America in the post-World War II world."
—William Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor, emeritus, Duke University; former president, Organization of American Historians

"America founded itself on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but for much of the last century, it has been increasingly seized by fear, suspicion, and anxiety. Elaine Tyler May has provided a lucid, accessible, and sweeping account of this national nervous breakdown. With acute intelligence and supple prose, she separates distortion from reality, fever dream from waking truth."—SamuelFreedman, professor, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

"If you think the favored aim of Americans today is 'freedom,' this fast-paced and provocative book turns the tables on that assumption. Fortress America contends that security is the watchword of the past 50 years—with a misplaced and too often punitive exaggeration that has created more harms than benefit to ourselves and to democracy. Elaine Tyler May's emphasis here deserves close reading."—NancyF. Cott, Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard University

"Few historians have probed the hidden undercurrents of the Cold War as perceptively and brilliantly as Elaine Tyler May. In Homeward Bound, she explained how containment abroad seeped into America's homes, and now, in her equally penetrating Fortress America, she reveals the fears and insecurities in those homes that emerged to elect our 45th President. A major contribution and a must-read to understand the origins of the Age of Trump."—MartinJ. Sherwin, University Professor at George Mason University, Pulitzer Prize(with co-author Kai Bird) winner for American Prometheus

"In this brisk yet sobering book, Elaine Tyler May shows the way a culture of fear, nurtured during the Cold War, led Americans to fear each other. Citizens armed themselves and favored policies that fueled mass incarceration and scapegoating immigrants. May's masterful synthesis of cultural history makes Fortress America a compelling read."—Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time

Library Journal

11/01/2017
May (Regents Professor of American Studies and History, Univ. of Minnesota) characterizes the years since World War II as perhaps the most fearful in U.S. history, demonstrating how Cold War-era fears of nuclear weapons attacks and communist subversion became a potent motivating force affecting elections, public policy, social models, and everyday American life. May further suggests this reaction expanded and generalized in the late 1960s and 1970s—the era of antiwar and social justice demonstrations—to include a fear of crime and distrust of specific cities and the people found there, even though crime steadily decreased during the period. An isolated culture of retreat resulted, characterized by an abandoning of public spaces, mass incarceration, walled and gated residential communities, private security companies, and a rise in gun ownership. The author's wide research cites popular contemporary journalism, motion pictures, public opinion polls, political speeches, census data, advertising copy, crime statistics, and countless scholarly monographs. VERDICT This thoroughly researched and thoughtfully written social history is recommended to all who seek to understand our divided society.—Paul A. D'Alessandro, Brunswick, ME

Kirkus Reviews

2017-09-14
If violent crime statistics indicate a downward trend, why are Americans so afraid?"There was never a ‘golden age' of security," writes May (American Studies and History/Univ. of Minnesota; America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril and Liberation, 2010, etc.). "But there were moments in the twentieth century when citizens and policymakers believed that the government had a responsibility to create the conditions in which Americans could achieve safety and a decent standard of living." According to the author, the Cold War and Atomic Age changed this situation, as the government admitted its inability to protect citizens from the impact of a bomb and encouraged them to take action themselves. Citizens found this admission unsettling, and, combined with the changes in society regarding the civil rights movement, Americans set out to protect themselves and the model of the traditional family against threats of crime, bombs, and, eventually, terrorism. The events of 9/11 ushered in new fears, and the war on terror came to have a similar effect on fear levels, with Americans once again responsible for their own protection. May asserts that though Americans are actually safer than ever from violent crime and more at risk from people they know than strangers, the fear of the unknown still has a strong hold on society. People retreat more into private, secured homes and gated communities, which actually detract from any sense of real community and statistically have not been proven safer. "Hostility toward government and a lack of concern for the common good may have made the nation considerably less secure," writes the author, who closes with a more tenuous correlation between this fortress mentality and threats of "unregulated private enterprise" and the unchecked increase in wealth of the ultrarich due to misdirected attention and resources.In making a solid case for our country's overinvestment in personal and national security, May asks a germane question: are we focusing on the right threats?

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173805751
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	12/12/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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