I was at a book club meeting not long ago, and during a conversation about my most recent book, Robber Barons, the theme turned to how lucky we are to live in the USA today. That book explores how the Robber Barons of the early 20th century not only dominated industrial America but also places like the territory of Alaska. It follows a small cadre of ordinary citizens, including steamship captains, fish cannery owners, teachers, ministers, Native villagers, as they battle the financial elite, in local government, Congress, and across Alaska, a territory twice the size of Texas. The industrial elite manipulated Congress to corner the fishing, timber, and mining industries as they developed in the territory. Their methods left people hungry, wounded or even dead. While the book tells an exciting tale of progress against power, it wasn’t until Alaska was granted statehood that its citizens truly began to control their own lives—better but not perfect.
One woman at the book club meeting strenuously objected to the idea that life today is much better than a hundred and twenty-five years ago. Armed with a list of deeply felt injustices and inequities, she was incredulous that most of us felt fortunate to live here and now. That got me thinking about my stories.
Injustice and unequal outcomes are a fact of life, often troubling and demanding efforts to mitigate them, and rich subjects for great books. History is built upon the efforts of ordinary people trying to make things better. Compounding the problem is that values change over time. The majority of Americans in 1826 believed in slavery. The Civil War ended the legal framework for slavery, but it took another hundred years to end many people’s views on the race. Today there is still racism in the country, but no one advocates owning other human beings. The racism of the 1960s when Black citizens struggled just to feed their children, and when laws and neighborhood covenants limited where you could live, and where your children could go to school, is gone.
Especially those of us who have traveled the world recognize how fortunate we are to live in a country where the bottom 10% of households economically would be in the top 10% in much of the world. The citizens of Iran are right now celebrating other countries bombing their nation, hoping that a repressive government that kills women for not properly covering their hair will be destroyed.
These conversations, triggered by books, is one of the great joys of book clubs. They are also important conversations in a divided nation. I’ve yet to meet a perfect person. But we can all be better and more knowledgeable, and we can rejoice in “better” even when it falls short of “perfect.” And I will keep on writing about it.