“Perfecting Our Union” is a project of Richard E. Baldwin.
I received a PhD in American Literature from the University of California Berkeley. After seven years teaching literature at the University of Washington, I left the university and began a business career. For over thirty years I owned a residential real estate sales business of which I was the active manager and broker.
During those years I pursued an extensive course of reading in American history. I was driven by a desire to make more sense out of our history. The result is a new national narrative that focuses on the role in the process of developing national and individual “American” identities of race and slavery, gender, and labor. It is a story that took place in settled areas, not on the Frontier. It situates the West as a mythic structure used to help make sense of the chaos of life as Americans shaped their New Order of the Ages.
Since selling my business in 2008 I have worked on getting my ideas into writing. “The Impossible Dream” is a summary of the argument; “A Modest Capitalist Proposal” sketches part of a policy solution. While I work on completing an expanded book-length version, I hope to use this site to test my ideas with readers and benefit from your responses.
Perfecting Our Union 