Book Review: ‘The American Boomerang: How the World’s Greatest Nation Will Do It Again’ by Nick Adams

Book Review: “The American Boomerang: How the World’s Greatest Nation Will Do It Again” by Nick Adams

WND Books, 2014. Trade paperback, audio and electronic editions. 208 pages

Have you ever had the experience of someone you barely know — not family or someone in your circle of friends but someone who’s barely an acquaintance — coming up to you and telling you the things they admire about you?

That’s what Australian Nick Adams does in “The American Boomerang: How the World’s Greatest Nation Will Do It Again.”

Many have compared this to Alexis de Toqueville’s immortal “Democracy in America.” I have to admit up front, I haven’t read de Toqueville, so I can’t speak to that, but Adams quotes liberally from “Democracy in America” throughout. De Tocqueville was a young French official, sent to study the U.S. prison system, who wound up extolling the virtues of America, its national character, and its values.

Adams is a native and resident of Australia, but he is an unabashed Ameriphile. For those who don’t know, and I was in that group before reading this, Australia is America’s most consistent ally. Besides having started out as a British colony, they have sided with the U.S. in every military conflict since World War I. Not even England or Canada can say that. So in many ways, we’re half-brothers.

“I developed a heart for American early … I love America because it is confident, courageous, faithful, idealistic, innovative, inspirational, charitable, and optimistic. It is everything as a nation that I wish to be as a person… . I’ll tell you American exceptionalism is simple. It’s individualism, not collectivism. Patriotism, not relativism. Optimism, not pessimism. Limited government, not nanny state. God, not government. Faith, not secularism. Life, not death. Equality of opportunity, not equality of income.”

“The American Boomerang” is Adams’ love letter to the United States along with a few warning notes as well.

In sixteen chapters, Adams looks at America’s national character and the values he feels have shaped that character and set America apart from the rest of the world. He also notes some items of concern that have crept into American life — political correctness, cultural relativism, and the current attitudes about radical Islam being the biggest ones.

American exceptionalism is a theme that runs throughout the entire book. He sets the theme this way: “American exceptionalism is not an opinion or moral judgment but a testable, provable hypothesis: more than that, it is a foundational cultural value of America.”

He looks at things such as the cowboy spirit that everyone associates with the American spirit. “One visit to this grand land reveals an instinctively culturally conservative and optimistic society, a stark contrast to the state of all other Western nations that are full of, according to Italian philosopher Marcello Pera, ‘agnosticism, of relativism, of disenchantment, of presumption.’ … American national character must be understood in the context of its creation — that of a self-made society.”

Of Old Glory and patriotism, he says, “No one does patriotism like an American. It’s inspiring … America wins respect in the world when it displays who it is, not what self-appointed cultural dieticians want it to become.”

You can’t look at America without looking at her Christian history. “The intent to forge a nation under God is clear to any reader of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — America’s founding texts. … They keep turning to [their faith], and every time they do, it allows them not to just dance with broken hearts but to get stronger.” This chapter is one of the longest ones in the book.

Adams looks at the American military in an uncomfortably titled chapter, “God’s Troops,” but nonetheless he reminds people about things we’ve forgotten: “It is seldom recognized that Americans have only ever deployed in response to aggression, never to practice it… . It is true, also, that the American military uniform is to the eye of the oppressed civilian what the oasis is to one dying of thirst: the subjugated run to it, not away from it. And there are few uniforms in history that boast this effect.”

With sixteen chapters, and having underlined sections of almost every page (sometimes most of the page), there isn’t room or time to share everything. Suffice it to say that this book touched a chord deep inside me. Seeing America through the eyes of a foreigner has made me appreciate my homeland all over again. Often, we need that. It’s the American boomerang effect of returning to our point of origin.

I’ve also noticed these days that many of the greatest success stories aren’t coming from people born and bred in America but from immigrants. Too often, all the advantages and blessings we enjoy as natural-born Americans just become part of the background, like wallpaper. When immigrants arrive, they see all the things we’ve stopped noticing and take advantage of those very things. It’s time for us to start noticing what’s around us again.

Adams wraps up with some chapters on dangers facing America, such as a war on American traditions and culture from within, the dangers of political correctness, and being too soft on radical Islam. “The dangers for the American include the malignant cancer or political correctness: government overreach that seeks to replicate a European system of social democracy; the transformation of the classroom to the desires of the bureaucratic elites; and cultural relativism with the warm embrace of Europe’s failed multiculturalism.”

In the end, Adams is hopeful for the future of America. He believes America has the systems and structures in place to ride out its current storm, unlike other Western nations. Adams’ writing style is direct and clear. There is an air of erudition, but it’s never out of reach for anyone. I found myself unable to set it down. And looking at our culture through another’s eyes is refreshing. If you want to open your eyes once again to the wonders of America, this is the book for you.