A Nation with Ideas

Robert A. George recently reviewed They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators, by Harold Evans with Gail Buckland and David Lefer.

Is America a nation? Or is it a people? Or is it an idea? These questions have been debated at least from the nation's founding.

Harold Evans' "They Made America" makes the more nuanced argument that America is actually a nation of people with ideas.

I agree with a point George picks up: The key word here is innovation — not "invention." It's an important distinction because one thing that comes through is that a key aspect of American ingenuity is not just having the smarts or technical know-how to produce something, but also the creativity to sell it.

Wilfred McClay offered a incisive look into this question a few years ago in The Public Interest. His article, "America: Idea or Nation?" is available here.