#137 - Clement Knox - How Only The British Could Make America Before America Could Make Itself

Clement Knox is a writer and historian. He is the author of The Scramble for America: How the United States Conquered a Continent (William Collins, 2026), and writes at Past Notes on Substack.Two hundred and fifty years ago, the United States was thirteen coastal colonies clinging to the Atlantic seaboard. Within a single lifetime, it became a continental empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific — and the founding generation openly called it exactly that: an empire. This conversation asks how it happened, and who actually did it, because the people who crossed the Appalachians, fought the wars, and settled the frontier were not a random sample of humanity. They were the descendants of specific English and British folkways, and their story tells us a great deal about the inheritance they carried across the ocean.In this conversation we think out loud about:Why the founding generation openly called their own project an empire — and why that fact became invisible to later AmericansFrederick Jackson Turner's argument that America only became culturally distinct once settlers crossed the Appalachians and had to build civilisation anewDavid Hackett Fischer's four British folkways and which of them actually drove the push westwardWhy the Scots-Irish Borderers who settled Appalachia resemble the Bedouin of Arabia more than they resemble the East Coast settlements they left behindThe recurring tension between liberty and order in the Anglo-American character, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the modern dayGeorge Washington as a land speculator and enclosure man who died the richest man in the country — the story behind the mythWhy neither the settlers nor the Native Americans held a monopoly on civilisation or savagery, and what a forensic reading of the primary sources actually showsWhy Clement changed his mind about universalism — and what that means for how the modern world's institutions were builtAnd if you haven't already, go and watch The Call of England — my documentary series retracing H.V. Morton's 1927 journey to find out what's left of the old country. Episode one and two are live now on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCHptEOmbMRzSV7TQqVMJxAVohAEnvLdA&si=VcpwRhAUmrcrWOTmFind Clement Knox:Substack: https://clementknox.substack.comRelated episodes:— Gary Gerstle — The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: https://youtu.be/KbCyaKcj0E8?si=jtY9S8tX493eqUkz— Michael Lind — Why America & Britain Keep Betraying Their Working Class: https://youtu.be/YN212csIsvU?si=a9BsVmo0sqGI-qoy— David Starkey — Britain as a Disaster Since 1945: https://youtu.be/aI3tBbqMmXY?si=SI9B_qVavRQH-EGb— Katharine Birbalsingh — She Told 4,000 People The West Is Committing Suicide: https://youtu.be/L60dtIoALgA?si=yXhD5G8C-4zEueiRThinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam.▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.