Posted on 09/09/2007 1:26:25 PM PDT by Pharmboy
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A revolt in an undeveloped colony on the fringe of civilization, led by a big landowner and slaveholder with little education or military experience, brought to success by help from France in its feud with the British colonizers.
That's how a cynical European might have described the American Revolution.
Jay Winik's new account of the period takes a different view in American Revolution presented as source of worldwide political changes ever since "The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800" (Harper Collins, 659 pages, $29.95). He feels that history may never have seen a group of such practical political genius and continuing influence as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and its other leaders. He calls the results of their lives' work "The Great Upheaval."
Winik also covers the human side. Adams, though he revered Washington and had much the same political ideas, could refer to him privately as an "old muttonhead" who couldn't spell. Washington seems to have loved Lafayette as the son he never had. Adams and Jefferson fought one another in Washington's cabinet, but reconciled in a memorable correspondence at the end of their long lives. The reconciliation came after the short period _ 1788 to 1800 _ that Winik examines.
"It was then the decade that made the modern world," he writes in an epilogue. "True, much remained to be done. But much had already been accomplished. To contemplate the seeds of the 1790s _ of republics and revolution, of democratic hopes and liberalism, of totalitarianism and religious war too, is to begin to understand the tides that have swept the globe and battered nations, large and small, ever since."
Winik makes no judgments on these tides, though he finds more to praise in the American Revolution than in the fiercer French one it helped inspire. He just sets out his findings on what happened in France, the United States and much of Europe.
Admirers of the representative government that has kept the United States internally peaceful, except in the Civil War, seem to have succeeded in Japan, Germany, India and South Korea. All of these but India have developed democratic institutions since World II in the presence of American troops.
Rebels inspired by the more violent internal history of France, and then the Soviet Union, have brought violent and repressive regimes seeking extreme social change in China, Cuba and North Korea _ with Russia, the Balkans and much of the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America still in the balance.
Future revolutionaries may well be confused in their choice of methods by the ups and downs in the French-American relationship.
Upheavals appear to stretch into the future from two different patterns of change. Popular opinion in France supported the help that King Louis XVI gave the 13 colonies. "Heroic poems with 13 stanzas became the rage," Winik records. "So were picnics on the 13th of the month in which 13 toasts to the Americans were drunk."
When the cost of the military support helped overthrow the French monarchy, Jefferson took part in drafting the republic's bill of rights. After the decade of bloody conflict that followed, a popular young general named Napoleon Bonaparte led a coup that shredded those rights. He also fought a "quasi-war" with the United States, though President John Adams avoided formal hostilities.
After Jefferson succeeded Adams as America's president, Napoleon sold the entire Louisiana territory to the United States _ 828,000 square miles that stretch from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and doubled the size of the country. Napoleon was afraid Jefferson would ally the United States with Britain against him.
"In truth, the world has never seen anything quite like this epoch and likely never will again," Winik writes.
The "modern world" probably did start with the French Revolution, but culturally things were more interesting a few years further down the road: war and politics took up way too much energy in the 1790s.
And much of the world said, "That whole socialist revolution under Robespierre and Danton was a swell idea, that's the best model, we just need to put better people in charge ... I'm sure it will work out better when WE try it".
Excellent review. I’ll have to purchase this book.
Adams, though he revered Washington:') Heh, no he didn't. He complained about Washington in very petty ways in correspondence. He did likewise regarding a number of other of his contemporaries. Adams was a brittle-egoed, whiny little beeotch, who resented it when he himself wasn't center of attention. And I say that as a major thread hijacker...
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