Rating: 
Summary: Understanding
Review: When it comes to American history, it is arguably so that the most important dates or events, whivhever you prefer, is the American Revolution. The dates run from about 1764, with the passage of the Sugar Act to 1783 the Peace of Paris was decided, or even as late as 1787 when Delaware became the first state in the Union. However you look at it, there is no one text that gives you a better, more thorough telling and understanding of the most important time in out history, before we officially had a country to even have a history, than The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn. This is the most thorough and most balanced fusion of primary documents and secondary analysis. Every topic is important every conclusion is crucial to understanding the truth about this great and terrible period in our history. It receives my highest recommendation.
Rating:
Summary: Fundamental
Review: When published in the 1960s, this book had a revolutionary effect on our understanding of the American Revolution. Its impact is undiminished by the passage of the last 40 years. Bailyn's scholarship and exposition remains as exciting as it must have been at the time of initial publication. Bailyn attempted to take a fresh look at the thinking of the individuals who made the Revolution. His work was based on an extensive survey and analysis of the large number of political pamphlets published in the years leading up to the revolution. His work benefited as well greatly from a number of other significant works of scholarship, such as Caroline Robbins' book on the Commonwealth tradition in 18th century thought. More than anything else, Bailyn succeeded in determining what key terms like 'power', 'liberty', and republicanism meant to the Revolutionary generations. In doing so, he was able to strip away anachronistic accretions from these terms and ideas and recover the actual thinking of the Revolutionaries and their opponents. Bailyn's achievement is manifold. He was able to show that dominant intellectual influence on the Revolutionaries was a compound of classical models, Common Law legal tradition, Enlightenment ideology, covenant theology, and a strong tradition of British intellectual and political dissent that had its roots in the Commonwealth period of the 17th century. The latter tradition was especially important and acted as the binding matrix for other traditions and interpretative lens through which other received ideas were focused. Bailyn shows how these ideas were articulated in the specifically American context and how they led inevitably to confrontation with the expanding imperial authority of Britain. This conflict led to new expansions of the basic ideology, some of which would represent completely novel ideas. The traditional ideas of representation and consent, constitutional basis of society, and sovereignty were overthrown and replaced to a very large extent by the concepts we still uphold. The development of these new ideas and the necessity to give them practical scope would lead to what Bailyn artfully termed "The Contagion of Liberty"; the expansion of concepts of rights and freedom well beyond the original categories of thought received by the Revolutionary generations. These would include attacks on slavery, the questioning of establishment of religion, speculation about democracy as a legitimate and potentially stable form of government, and an increasing emphasis on social equality generated from the realization of political equality. As Bailyn remarks, the thinking and writing on these topics provides the bridge between the world of the 18th century intellectuals and what would become the world of Madison and de Toqueville. Bailyn's analysis and scholarship are superb. The organization and quality of writing in this book are outstanding. Just as important, Bailyn is very good at supporting his analysis with well chosen excerpts from contemporary political pamphlets. His judicious choice of quotations not only serves to support his conclusions but gives a fine idea of the words and thoughts of the Revolutionaries and their opponents. This is a fundamental book for understanding the American past.
Rating:
Summary: Fundamental
Review: When published in the 1960s, this book had a revolutionary effect on our understanding of the American Revolution. Its impact is undiminished by the passage of the last 40 years. Bailyn's scholarship and exposition remains as exciting as it must have been at the time of initial publication. Bailyn attempted to take a fresh look at the thinking of the individuals who made the Revolution. His work was based on an extensive survey and analysis of the large number of political pamphlets published in the years leading up to the revolution. His work benefited as well greatly from a number of other significant works of scholarship, such as Caroline Robbins' book on the Commonwealth tradition in 18th century thought. More than anything else, Bailyn succeeded in determining what key terms like 'power', 'liberty', and republicanism meant to the Revolutionary generations. In doing so, he was able to strip away anachronistic accretions from these terms and ideas and recover the actual thinking of the Revolutionaries and their opponents. Bailyn's achievement is manifold. He was able to show that dominant intellectual influence on the Revolutionaries was a compound of classical models, Common Law legal tradition, Enlightenment ideology, covenant theology, and a strong tradition of British intellectual and political dissent that had its roots in the Commonwealth period of the 17th century. The latter tradition was especially important and acted as the binding matrix for other traditions and interpretative lens through which other received ideas were focused. Bailyn shows how these ideas were articulated in the specifically American context and how they led inevitably to confrontation with the expanding imperial authority of Britain. This conflict led to new expansions of the basic ideology, some of which would represent completely novel ideas. The traditional ideas of representation and consent, constitutional basis of society, and sovereignty were overthrown and replaced to a very large extent by the concepts we still uphold. The development of these new ideas and the necessity to give them practical scope would lead to what Bailyn artfully termed "The Contagion of Liberty"; the expansion of concepts of rights and freedom well beyond the original categories of thought received by the Revolutionary generations. These would include attacks on slavery, the questioning of establishment of religion, speculation about democracy as a legitimate and potentially stable form of government, and an increasing emphasis on social equality generated from the realization of political equality. As Bailyn remarks, the thinking and writing on these topics provides the bridge between the world of the 18th century intellectuals and what would become the world of Madison and de Toqueville. Bailyn's analysis and scholarship are superb. The organization and quality of writing in this book are outstanding. Just as important, Bailyn is very good at supporting his analysis with well chosen excerpts from contemporary political pamphlets. His judicious choice of quotations not only serves to support his conclusions but gives a fine idea of the words and thoughts of the Revolutionaries and their opponents. This is a fundamental book for understanding the American past.
Rating:
Summary: The Power of Ideas in Forming America
Review: Why did the American colonies declare their Independence from Great Britain? Baylin's classic study tries to show that American Independence had its roots in the power of ideas -- of a rethinking of the proper role of government and a willingness to put thought into action with what became the uniquely American combination of idealism and realism. Bailyn's approach rejects certain types of other plausible explanations of the Revolution -- such as economic rivalry with the mother country or personal ambition on the part of colonial leaders --to tell his story of the origins of American ideas. Bailyn finds the ideas that shaped the Revolution stated and debated in the ubiquitous pamphlets that appeared in the colonies between, about, 1760 -- 1776. But the source of the ideas are much deeper. Bailyn traces these ideas to the ancient Roman orators, through philosophical figures such as Locke and Vattel. The immediate source of the ideas which became America was in dissenting policitical thought in Great Britain in the later Seventeenth and Early Eighteent Century following the Glorious Revolution. The concern was political corruption in the Britain of the time and the fear that the monarchy would reassert its dominance over British life. Early in the 18th century, well before the French-Indian War, these concerns found their way to the American colonies and prepared the intellectual groundwork for independence. The colonists had a real fear that what they perceived as arbitrary British actions would reduce them to slavehood or vassalage. Bailyn discusses in detail how the colonists took English political thought and applied it to the nature of representative government, constitutional thought, and the nature of divided sovereignty. He then explains how the manner in which the colonists transformed thinking about the nature of government had ramifications in the colonists' view of slavery, the disestablishment of religion, a classless society, and the nature of democracy. The intellectual transformation required for an independent United States thus occurred well before the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers. Bailyn's book is a work of detailed scholarship and not easy to read. It is a major achievement of intellectual history and will more than repay the effort. John Adams is among the major heros of this book. Readers that want to follow-up McCollough's popular biography and learn about the ideas of the time might well explore this book. Bailyn's study affirms the power of thought and of the American experiment. In our troubled times, it may help take us back to the origins of our country to learn where we have been so that we may intelligiently decide where we are going.
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