A journey through the Appalachian Mountains to explain America: interview with Jacopo Rossi Lucattini
“Appalachians – A small history of America in ten stages” is a real Bildungsroman in the history of the United States, conducted with verve and passion by Jacopo Rossi Lucattini, writer and translator, but above all a great connoisseur of the world of stars and stripes. Atlantico Quotidiano interviewed him to talk about America and his book.
DANIELE MELONI: Books on America abound in Italy. There is no correspondent of the press and mainstream TV who did not want to tell us about "his America". This book, however, has another angle. He dwells on a particular physicist in the United States – the presence of the Appalachian range – and on fault lines of American society that rarely emerge in other stories. What inspired this book?
JACOPO ROSSI LUCATTINI: First of all, it must be said that America is indeed a complex, multiform reality, which goes far beyond easy reductions, simplifications and, above all, flattening of the continental European coordinates. This is true both from a political and cultural point of view, from the point of view of contemporaneity as well as of history. Excluding narratives that are too often conducted on the basis of prejudices or in any case of positions markedly hostile to the United States, it is quite common practice, on this side of the Atlantic, to describe America as if it were simply a branch of Europe that grew up in the hemisphere. Western, tracing its doctrines and philosophical-political contrasts to continental dichotomies such as right-left (in a more crude way), or conservative – liberal (in a certainly more congruous way, but always off target).
If we really wanted to reduce the US philosophical-political Weltanschauung to a fundamental opposition, we should undoubtedly identify it in the theoretical one between big government and small government , and in its practical declination of confrontation between central power and States' Rights . Not giving them the right emphasis risks preventing readers from fully understanding this reality, from reading this story in order to adapt it to their own Weltanschauung , and thus not being able to place the contemporaneity of our days in the most appropriate context. This is the inspiring principle of this book: to accompany the reader on a journey across America, taking advantage of a track, if we want to define it, traced through the valleys of Appalachia: a journey during which to try to look at the fundamental phases of his history, to the characters who have contributed to shaping it, and to the phenomena that have characterized it, as much as possible, if not with the eyes of an American observer, with the guidance of those who have trained their preparation on American history in an academic context American, despite being fully European in culture and mindset .
DM: What do the Appalachians represent in American history both physically and politically (which is always linked to the geography of a nation)?
JRL: As I mentioned, the path through which I accompany the reader passes through ten small towns located in the Appalachian Mountains, which represent one of the most peculiar and richest in history regions of the entire continent. A path that, in fact, was not – deliberately – conceived as linear as a whole, but only within the individual realities: proceeding from one city to another, you will take part in a real journey back and forth in the time, obviously not in an erratic way, but following the ranks of the great guiding themes. I am convinced that this can be an optimal way to understand the intertwining of themes, their overlap in local, state, national and international plans, often at times, in circumstances and in different and specific ways – and thus be able to see the patterns. , the warps on which this story was woven.
DM: Are there any points of departure and arrival on this journey?
JRL: We will start by addressing the particular situation of the society of the oldest US state, Virginia, split between two economic and cultural systems and soon divided by the Civil War – a theme that will be resumed with chapters entirely dedicated to discovering the actual reality of the slave world. of the South. We will then move on to industrial development – which will be the subject of great attention already in the third city and then in an extremely in-depth way with the penultimate – the dynamics and reasons of the Great Depression, the New Deal and the birth of a political model, the homonymous New Deal Coalition , which perfectly reflects the all-American tendency to carry out different political instances on different levels.
Indeed, the great alliance of interest groups created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the Democratic Party posed as reformist and progressive at the federal level, proposing for the government an active and important role in the economy, to support a nation in great suffering, attracting so in the North, intellectuals and working classes , the good society of the East Coast and ethnic-religious minorities, African Americans in the lead. At the same time, however, he also posed as the champion of the States' Rights , defending their prerogatives with great tenacity in state-federal government relations. On a practical level, this meant that throughout the South, at the exact same time in history, the Dems were a fiercely conservative force, dedicated to defending by all means the racial segregation and privileges of the southern white elites. If we did not keep in mind what we have said about the deep nature of the American political debate, this might seem unsustainable hypocrisy – and over time this view would indeed have made its way into one part of the party, which will be discussed in Danville. always in Virginia, in our fourth stage – but for decades it has essentially represented the best way, or at least the most functional, to guarantee a precarious balance between the two philosophical-political worlds that we now know.
DM: What are the historical periods most considered in the production of the book?
JRL: The idea behind the book is to provide both an overview and to offer detailed insights, dedicated to the moments, the protagonists and the most decisive phenomena in shaping the America we know. In our ten cities it will therefore be possible to meet all the main historical periods, starting from the often neglected colonial eighteenth century, within which the formation of the instances that would have accompanied the new nation throughout its history, be they the attitude towards Native Americans, administrative models to be adopted or socio-economic trends.
Also from this point of view, the goal was to succeed in not following limited and limiting schemes: alongside the analysis of phenomena there will be great space for the events and ideas of the great characters – often illustrated by themselves in speeches or diarî, by me scrupulously translated, inserted and commented. Because for me history is not a mere question of macro phenomena, structures and superstructures: history is also the result of the work of men and women who find themselves, more or less consciously, directing it with their actions.
I can give a small example: as we will discover among the coal fields of West Virginia, it is certainly true that the impact of the First World War on the role of women in the economic working life of the country has in a sense played in favor of obtaining the political rights by the latter. But this would not have been possible, certainly not at the beginning of the 1920s, without the courage, ingenuity and self-denial of women like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, able to force President Wilson's hand thanks to the force of action. spectacular that brought to light the violent reactions of the Dem establishment . However, even these efforts would have proved fruitless, without the pragmatism of the suffragist associations, willing to accept a Southern strategy , i.e. to engage with the Democratic political leaders of the South in ensuring that giving the vote to women would not lead to a new vigor to the civil rights movement for African Americans – in exchange for the much-needed ratification of the Amendment on Women's Suffrage in the South.
As we can see, once again, the relations between different levels of American society and politics appear to us to be the center of its history, the ground on which its battles are fought, and the power relations between central and local power are confirmed as the tool with which you win or lose. All this, and much more, you will find in this book, which will constantly move on various levels, trying to offer a balanced and coherent vision.
DM: In the book, some greats of American history are mentioned, but also the influence of lesser known characters. Which? How do they contribute to the construction of the ideals of American society?
JRL: Indeed, in the book you can find a rather large collection of characters, who play a fundamental role in providing the variety of points of view that I was interested in offering. We will certainly meet many of the most famous figures on a global level, whose aspects we will try to illustrate too often overshadowed – such as the personal and ideological training of Teddy Roosevelt or the relationship between the trade unionist Philip Asa Randolph and Martin Luther King and the one between the latter and soul singer Mahalia Jackson. But there will also be the right space for some characters of great importance but usually considered mainly at the local level, such as John Sevier, first governor of Tennessee, whom we will often meet, between the 18th and 19th centuries, and who will provide us with valuable insights into the " Indian question ”and on the dynamics of the political rise in the first, fundamental decades of the nation's life. Finally, there are also ordinary people, whose stories emerge from my research on contemporary sources, and can lead us to be direct witnesses of the unfolding of history in daily lives and events – such as that of the unfortunate William Henry Smith, an African American man victim of a lynching in Pulaski, Virginia, in 1888, for failing to show proper deference to a white lady.
In fact, many of the topics that we will deal with inevitably outline gloomy paintings, making us understand how America is really a multifaceted reality, in which there is no clear division, all white or all black, and in which the same protagonists, like Henry Morgenthau Jr., Secretary of the Treasury of FDR – chiefly responsible for the American effort to save Hungarian Jews but also the author of a post-war reorganization plan of Germany with potentially genocidal consequences – can stand out for both exceptionally positive works and incredibly successful initiatives. negative.
This is America: not the perfect nation, born completely free and destined to spread its way of life to the whole world by any means, as the supporters of the so-called American Exceptionalism believe, a real pivotal ideological theory, which has accompanied the USA throughout a good part of their history – even contemporary, as we shall see. No, history tells us that America is a complex country, full of contradictions, of contrasts, a country with an often obscure history. But it also tells us that America is a country that was born giving itself great, lofty ideals, certainly not mirrored by the factual reality of the time, but that has always been able to find the strength, throughout its history, to fight alone. their own distortions, and to refer precisely to those ideals of freedom, of equality not in results but in opportunities, of self-determination and respect for the individual, as a guide, as an inspiration to try to overcome the numerous and serious problems that afflicted him – and, in part, still afflict him. All this I have tried to tell, rather than explain, in this little journey through the Appalachian Mountains.
“Appalachians – A small history of America in ten stages” by Jacopo Rossi Lucattini (with drawing on the cover by Sophia Berg), € 14.99 .
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