American Bloods

John Kaag’s American Bloods is the account of this remarkable family, of its participation in the making of a nation, and of how its members embodied the elusive ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Inspired by the discovery of a mysterious genealogy in an old Massachusetts farmhouse, Kaag follows eight members of this family from the British Civil Wars in the seventeenth century through the founding of the colonies, the American Revolution, transcendentalism, the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War, and the rise of first-wave feminism, all the way to the beginning of the twentieth century. The Bloods were active participants in virtually all the pivotal moments in American history, coming into contact with everyone from Emerson and Thoreau to John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Victoria Woodhull, and William James. The genealogy of the family tracks the ebb and flow of what Thoreau called “wildness,” an original untamed spirit that would recede in the making of America but would never be extinguished entirely. American Bloods offers distinct insight into the tensions between trespass and occupation in the narrative of the United States, assembling a composite portrait of America like no other