Mark Twain is the only American writer of that period that I like as a person. His politics were really radical and I still quote him as often as Engels when describing social murder. It isn't until like Sinclair and Steinbeck that I enjoy the country's writing again.

I find it ironic that I've spent so much time and energy looking at US history as an adult when I thought it was the most boring subject at every level of schooling I received. Turns out it was only boring because they had to strip it to its bones to not radicalize every child and adult along the way.

One of the best US propaganda tools targeting USians is convincing them their own country's history is mind-numbingly dull and not worth learning.

I read Zinn's "People's history...", a book written by socialdemocrat, and i had "Death to Amerikkka" moment every two pages or so.

Colonists steal native land and rename it Massachusetts. Centuries of exploitation, slavery, and war go by to establish white supremacist authority in the region. Henry David Thoreau is born. He goes to live in a shack his friend helped him build and his sister and mom helped him finance. The property is owned and controlled privately and administered by an evil slave-owning empire. His mom visits twice per week to give him pies and clean his socks. He regularly goes into town to buy food grown by exploited farm labor and probably slaves too.

Thoreau: "Ah, untapped, unspoiled nature. Living off the land and writing fancy boy essays. I'm truly the master of my own destiny."

Never look up the origin of the ice cream jingle "Turkey in the Straw" (CW for racism if you ignore this advice)

Unfortunately, no one is perfect, not even Brown. But, this guy also sounds pretty good once he has his to come to Jesus moment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Lay

Gotta remember that our history suppresses a lot of the stories of the good folks to help keep more of them from developing. Brown had his white supporters, ~~there were the unnamed folks involved with Bacon's rebellion~~, Bloody Kansas, and other uprisings. They were out there, even if they were few and far between.

Emerson's philosophy appealed to me at a phase in my life since it was alot about becoming self-dependent, which I viewed as a strength. By the time I actually read him though, I went through alot of changes in consciousness (ie Marxism) and saw through his fallacious arguments (also every speech was prefaced with something like "this was spoken at a ceremony for Harvard grads" so it was making privileged people feel better about themselves)

Thoreau also really appealed to me because I did feel "lonely among people" and thought that was just inherent in me. I think he's a little better than Emerson though, and he did protest against the invasion of Mexico and was arrested for it iirc. Don't know much about his views on race.

The other American that interested me was William James. I don't know much about his politics. I feel that pragmatism is actually what has become the status quo in America, and does alot to explain some the current ideology of the average american

it's always worse. there is not bottom.

a book called Teaching White Supremacy

by Donald Yacovone?