People of Plenty (David M. Potter)

David M. Potter in his book People of Plenty offers an analysis of the American character and American achievement in terms of the plenty Americans were faced with in the country they shaped out of the New world. It was the possibility that there was such abundance somewhere in the world that spurred many of the early explorers and that contribute to the decision of many of the colonists to settle in this region. Potter postulates that the American character has been shaped by exposure to the abundance around them so that they have become a people of plenty, a people shaped by economic abundance. In analyzing this issue, Potter also develops a different perspective on the role of the historian.

Potter began his analysis when asked in 1950 to write about the American character and especially on the influence of American economic abundance on that character. He says that the theme he was given was wide open and that at first he was only interested in finishing his assignment, but he began to see certain possible links between his work and that of social scientists. Potter states that of all the disciplines undertaken by human beings, "there is probably none which deals with a greater body of data than does history" (Potter viii). Historical interpretation is a controversial act, and many historians insist that they are not interpreting but are only dealing with facts. The implication is that interpretation is suspect, imposing one individual's point of view on the fact

Related Essays

People of Plenty .... The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: WW Norton, 1965. Potter, David M. People of Plenty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. (1520 6 )

People of Plenty .... The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: WW Norton, 1965. Potter, David M. People of Plenty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. (1520 6 )

explanation, his peculiar contribution to our knowledge of ourselves and of human affairs. It represents his special mode of thought, which has laws of its own and is limited by his apparatus (Butterfield 129). The historian may speak of the same issues addressed by other disciplines, such as the nature of evil, but when he does so, he is dealing not in morality but in a vision of the world from the historical perspective: If he deals in moral judgments at all he is trying to take upon himself a new dimension, and he is leaving that realm of historical explanation, which is the only one he can call his own (Butterfield 130). Potter is not dealing in moral judgments, but he is seeking insight for the historian from other disciplines with a different point of view. Potter offers insights from different disciplines--the psychologist, the anthropologist, the psychoanalyst--and finds that they agree in their emphasis on the competitive spirit and its influence (Potter 59). The exercise of this competitive spirit helped produce the economic abundance that would mark the American experience as those who settled in this part of the world sought to exploit the abundant resources for their own and societal economic development. Abunda

Category: Psychology - P