Ameryka odkupiona, czyli Johna Mattesona „Miejsce gorsze niż piekło” [recenzja]

Abstract

The present reflections address a text which resists any attempts at unambivalent categorization in terms of its genre. John Mattenson’s most recent book offers its reader not only a fascinating intellectual experience but also an intimate inside journey. In A Worse Place Than Hell the biographies of five main protagonists – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., John Pelham, Walt Whitman, Arthur B. Fuller, Louisa May Alcott – are the canvas, upon which the Author paints the biography of an adolescent country at the brink of a collapse. It is a (hi)story of the rite of passage from partisan egotism to civic responsibility, a social development that made America’s maturity possible. After Fredericksburg, the ultimate catastrophe was averted owing to the ethical integrity of individuals whose faith would redeem the initiative that America had stood for – and still stands – since 1776. Matteson’s book may still help inspire yet another ethical awakening in the nation fragmented more severely than ever since the end of the Civil War.