The Blood family’s rise through violence and fear exemplifies the darker forces that shaped America’s wealth and power.
John Kaag is no stranger to discovering hidden treasures. In his previous work, American Philosophy: A Love Story, he unearthed a remarkable collection of first-edition books by 19th-century American philosophers, many of whom were his intellectual heroes. In his latest book, American Bloods, Kaag uncovers the history of a highly influential family, tracing its roots from northern England to its significant impact across the United States. The Blood family’s saga, stretching from the era of the first settlers to modern times, is as riveting as it is illuminating.
Kaag, a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, resides near Concord, Massachusetts, a town famously associated with the birth of transcendentalism. It was here, by Walden Pond, that figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau developed their uniquely American philosophy of individualism and self-reliance. Concord, then, is a fitting backdrop for Kaag’s exploration of a family whose ascent through American society was marked by the violence and fear that often accompany the rise of wealth and power.
The Blood family’s journey is emblematic of the paradoxes embedded in America’s history. Their story is one of extreme ambition, accumulated wealth, and ruthless tactics. As the family moved westward through the expanding country, they embodied the untamed spirit of a young nation, one willing to sacrifice principles of morality and justice to secure power. This violent ascent—though at times cloaked in the rhetoric of progress and manifest destiny—serves as a reminder of the less noble forces that contributed to the country’s growth.
Kaag’s narrative illuminates how this family, like so many others in America’s early days, thrived on the periphery of legality and social ethics, where expansionism and the accumulation of wealth were often built on the backs of the vulnerable. Through fear, violence, and unrelenting ambition, the Blood family’s rise exemplifies the harsh realities that helped shape America’s powerful institutions and cultural dynamics.
By tracing the lineage of this influential family, Kaag offers a lens through which to examine the broader history of the United States, exposing the darker motivations that fueled its rise to global power. His exploration serves as both a personal investigation into his own heritage and a broader reflection on the costs of ambition in America.
