Peggy Noonan wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan. She helped get George HW Bush elected. She has been consulted The West Wing. And she is a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal for nearly a quarter of a century writing columns that won her a Pulitzer — and which have now been partially collected in a forthcoming book called A certain idea of ​​America.

“What’s that idea?” Peggy writes in the excerpt we publish today. ‘That she’s good. That she has value. That from her birth she was something new in the history of man, a step forward, a progress.” After a week of doomerism about our democracy, we thought our readers deserved to read her hopeful words about what she describes as “our continuing miracle, America.”

From Joe Biden’s lust for power to Taylor Swift’s magic and, yes, Donald Trump’s madness, A certain idea of ​​America examines the most powerful forces that have shaped our nation over the past decade. It will be released on November 19th and we are pleased to announce that Peggy has chosen to spend publication day with us, as our next Free press Book club guest. Bari Weiss will be performing in New York City, and you’re all invited. There will be an open bar. What are you waiting for? We expect this to sell out quickly, so reserve your ticket now by clicking here.

But first: Peggy’s essay. Part of the purpose of The Free press Book Club is intended to reflect on older books that speak to new books, and in this piece Peggy recommends three that, she writes, “explore the why, how, and what of loving America.” We hope you enjoy reading about it as much as we do. —The editorial staff

Charles de Gaulle’s famous first sentence War memories prefers to translate as: “All my life I have had a certain idea of ​​France.” It struck me when I first read it many years ago and it has stuck with me because I have had a certain idea of ​​America all my life.

What is that idea? That she is good. That she has value. That from her birth she was something new in the history of man, a step forward, a progress. The founders engaged in the highest form of human achievement, expressing assumptions and creating arrangements through which life could be made more just. In the course of history I saw something legendary. The genius cluster of the Founders, for example: How did those specific people come together at that specific time with just the right, different but complementary gifts? Long ago I asked historian David McCullough if he had ever wondered this. He said yes, and the only explanation he could think of was, “Providence.” That is also where my thoughts come to rest.

De Gaulle said that his thoughts about France were driven as much by emotion as by reason, and so are I. I’m not really into purple mountain majesties. I’d love America if it was a hole in the ground, but hey, it’s beautiful. I don’t like it just because it’s ‘an idea’. That seems a bit bloodless to me. Baseball didn’t come from an idea, it came from us: a long, cool game, punctuated by moments of excellence and utter heartbreak, a team sport in which each player operates on their own. The great movie about America’s pastime is not named Field of ideasthat’s what it’s called Field of dreams. And the scene that makes every adult cry is when the dark-haired young catcher steps out of the cornfield and walks up to Kevin Costner, who suddenly realizes: That’s my father.

The big question comes from the father: “Is this heaven?”

The great answer: “It’s Iowa.”

That brings me closer to my feelings about patriotism. We are a people who have experienced something epic together. We were given this brilliant, beautiful thing, this new arrangement, a political invention based on the astonishing premise that we are all equal, that where you start doesn’t determine where you end up. We’ve kept it going, from father to son, from mother to daughter, through the generations, inspired by the excellence and despite the heartbreak. No matter what happened, depression or war, we kept the meaning high and moved on. We have respected and protected the Constitution. And by working through and upholding we have created a history, traditions, a way of existing together.

It’s all a miracle. I love America because that’s where the miracle is.

In celebration of that miracle: three books that touch on the Why, HowAnd What of loving America.

1. About democracyby EB White

Start with EB White on Why.

America is to be loved lovingly for one important and obvious reason: because it is a democracy. In July 1943, at the height of World War II, White tried to define what that means. “Democracy is the recurring presumption that more than half the people are right more than half the time,” he wrote in The New Yorker. “It’s the sense of privacy in the voting booths, the sense of community in the libraries, the sense of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea that has not yet been refuted, a song whose words have not gone bad.

This short essay, “The Meaning of Democracy,” is included in a recent collection of White’s work, About democracy. In the introduction, Jon Meacham notes that Franklin D. Roosevelt loved White’s words. One of his speechwriters recalled that FDR read the essay aloud at rallies, in his irreplaceable patrician accent, often adding a homely coda at the end: “Those are exactly my feelings.”

There is a lot of sweetness in this collection.

2. What we so proudly greetedited by Amy and Leon Kass and Diana Schaub

There’s an argument about this How to love America.

There was a young man in 1838, an aspiring politician almost too shy to admit his ambition to himself or others, who gave a lecture to a Midwestern youth group. It was a speech about public policy, but it showed a delicate appreciation for psychology, for how people think about what’s happening around them.

America’s founding fathers—”the patriots of ’76,” this aspiring politician called them—were now all gone; James Madison had died nineteen months earlier. During their absence, the Americans felt lost. Those men stood for this country, they showed what it was in their behavior. Admiration for them had united the country. Now, without them, people felt alone. First principles were forgotten, mafia rule increased. In Mississippi they hung gamblers even though gambling was legal. It was madness and it threatened the republic.

The aspiring politician had an answer. Shift from reverence for the Founders to reverence for the laws they created. “Let reverence for the laws,” he said, “become the political religion of the nation.” Let us all agree that breaking the law means “trampling on the blood of one’s father.”

You guessed the speaker was Abraham Lincoln, then only 28. He was addressing the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois. This speech is a small part of an amazing compilation of the best things said by and to Americans What we so proudly greet. The diverse contributors include Philip Roth, Ben Franklin, Willa Cather, and WEB Du Bois. My friend Joel, an American-loving intellectual from New York, gave me the book as a gift. He opens it randomly every night and always finds something valuable. Now I do that too.

As I read, I thought about those who oppose illegal immigration today. They are often accused of petty and parochial motivations. But I believe that at the heart of their opposition is the delicate understanding that when the rule of law collapses, as it does every day at the southern border, everything else can collapse. Many things are more delicate than we think, and those most likely to recognize that delicacy are the most dependent on responsible leaders who will keep the nation’s laws strong and workable.

3. The Pioneersby David McCullough

Now, quickly, move on What you love it when you love America.

Twenty years ago, historian David McCullough was asked to be the commencement speaker at the 200th anniversary of Ohio University. In researching the school’s background and the area’s history, he came across a rich trove of stories about the largely unknown Americans who went to the Northwest Territory in 1788 and settled “the Ohio.”

The speech set him on the path to publishing a book 15 years later. The Pioneers is about the notable New Englanders who went to Ohio and has insisted from the beginning that in this unknown America there should be absolute freedom of religion, that great emphasis should be placed on public education, and that slavery should be against the law.

It is an inspiring story; poignant too. They suffered and caused some suffering. And yet, McCullough notes, historians would recognize that the ordinance that allowed the pioneers into Ohio “was designed to guarantee what would one day be called the American way of life.”

When you read it, you feel a sense of wonder at all the sacrifices made in the making of: us. And our continuing miracle, America. With all her glaring shortcomings – for example, we have always been a violent country – she deserves a sense of deep protection from us. It is our great job as citizens to brighten it up a little, make it better and pass it on safely to the generation that follows, and ask them to brighten it up and pass it on.

Peggy Noonan is a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, where a version of this essay originally appeared. Follow her at X @PeggyNoonanNYC and order A Certain Idea of ​​America today.

This is an edited excerpt from A Certain Idea of ​​America: Selected Writings by Peggy Noonan, which will be published on November 19, 2024 by Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright 2024 by Peggy Noonan.

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