We are all prisoners of history. This is more obvious at certain times - during the Great Depression, for example, or during times of war. There are historical moments when it becomes clear to each one of us that the actions that we take as individuals will matter very little. Peter Singer, in his look at his Jewish family's Austrian past during World War II, and Nancy MacLean, in her examination of the 20th-century rise of the Ku Klux Klan (which had had a previous incarnation during Reconstruction), allow us insight into two periods in history during which so many individuals were overwhelmed by the tide of history, and the ways in which some chose to resist cultural inundation.
The town of Athens, Georgia, in the early decades of the 20th century and the city of Vienna in the 1930s and 1940s might not seem to have much to do with each other. Athens was if not exactly a backwater during this period close to it while Vienna was, if not quite still at the height of its elegance and sophistication, close to it. But beneath differences of nationality, language, and degree of sophistication, Singer and MacLean demonstrate how many of the same cultural forces were at work in the two cities in these different eras, forces that led to racist atrocities in both cases.
The Klan presented itself as a nativist movement dedicated to creating "an invisible phalanx...to stand as impregnable as a tower against every encroachment upon the white man's liberty...in the white man's country, under the white man's flag" (Maclean 19). But while race was at the center of the Klan's identity and actions, it was certainly not the only factor. MacLean argues that the strength of the Klan arose not simply from racism but also from growing tensions over the rights that women had gained in the Progressive Era. KKK members were certainly racist - but they were also motivated by a desire to return power to husbands and fathers and to suppress what they saw as...