Memorials Tag

The story "The Man Without a Country" used to be standard reading matter for seventh graders. In fact, it was the first "real" book---as opposed to those tedious Dick and Jane readers---that I was assigned in school. It was exciting compared to Dick and Jane and the rest, since it dealt with an actual story that had some actual drama to it. It struck me as terribly sad---and unfair, too---that Philip Nolan was forced to wander the world, exiled, for one moment of cursing the United States. "The Man Without a Country" was the sort of paean to patriotism that I would guess is rarely or never assigned nowadays to students. Patriotism has gotten a bad name during the last few decades. This trend seems to have taken root (at least in this country) with the 60s, the Vietnam era, and the rise in influence of the left. But patriotism and nationalism were rejected by a significant segment of Europeans even earlier, as a result of the devastation both sentiments wrought on that continent during World War II. (Of course, WWII in Europe was a result mainly of German nationalism run amok, but it seems to have given nationalism as a whole a very bad name, a trend that began after the carnage of World War I.)