Andrew Carnegie and the Idea of an Anglo-American Reunion: 1886-1905

Abstract

In his Triumphant Democracy（1886）Andrew Carnegie claimed that American people found something lacking for the original Britons in some races including the German and the French, while he celebrated the British as a basic material to create the American republic. But he came to put more great value on the Teutonic origin for both Britain and America to envision the idea of an Anglo-American reunion in his article, A Look Ahead（1893）which was the new concluding chapter in the revised edition of Triumphant Democracy. Carnegie changed his view again in 1905, the year following the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France. He seemed to take the concept of republic as an important one which could include the three nations, Britain, France, and America while he continued to keep the idea of Teutonic because he thought that it could unite Britain and America with Germany, the Teutonic Power in a peaceful union. In this paper I argue how Carnegie shifted the emphasis in his writing on the balance between the notion of republic and that of race.