Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation

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Summary: An Intimate Glimpse of Colonial Virginia
Review: By editing and contextualizing the voluminous diary of Landon Carter, Rhys Isaac has made a significant contribution to the social history of early Virginia and colonial America. By placing excerpts from Carter's diary within a larger framework of colonial society, readers can gain a more thorough understanding of the changing mores of mid 17th century Virginia. Carter emerges as a flesh and blood person throughout the book, though rarely sympathetic when seen through the eyes of 21st century readers. Of particular impact were Carter's regularly inhumane interactions with slaves and increasing inability to reconcile relationships with his own children. At times the book is abstract and academic in style, yet the end results are more than justified for anyone with an interest in knowing more about our "peculiar institution" and the origins of American society and culture.

Rating:
Summary: Speculative psychology in the guise of history
Review: The author draws profound implications from diary passages which seldom appear to support those implications. The attempted parallel between Carter's plantation life and the revolution is labored, particularly the "father" analogy. Although one takes the point early in the book that King George and Landon Carter are both "fathers," this point is incessantly repeated, to the point of irritation. There is little hard evidence given for the proposition that King George, who was about 24 years old, was viewed by many 50- and 60-year-old colonists as a "father," or that the Revolution was symbolic parricide. The author spins simple diary statements into Carter's views of the cosmos, and this is seldom supported. The author also refers to Carter throughout as "Landon," as though they were personally close. The events chronicled by the diary are, in themselves, quite interesting. It is the psychological speculation that makes the book hard to get through.

Rating:
Summary: More than the title suggests
Review: This book isn't as popular as it should be because the title makes it seem something of a dry academic tome and, let's face it, Landon Carter doesn't have the popular name recognition of Alexander Hamilton (i.e. Chernow), George Washington (i.e. Ellis) or Benjamin Franklin (i.e. Wood).

The star of the show in this case is Carter himself rather than the author. Dr. Isaac does a wonderful job of framing and interpreting Carter's diary to make a coherent analysis of the profound social changes which occurred during the Revolutionary period. Carter was a first hand witness to the transformation of the American society from a rigid colonial society based on patronage to a participatory, republican society in which people made lives for themselves. The transformation is nothing less than a journey of existential self-discovery for Carter, which is something ANY person can appreciate. So this book is not just a biography of a member of the Virginia planter aristocracy, but a reflection of the undermining of the feudal, patriarchal social structure Americans largely rejected during the Revolution. And it illustrates that the highly dualistic interpretation of Americans of the period as either "patriot" or "loyalist" is largely a modern historical construct with little basis in truth. Marvelous work by one of the foremost historians of American colonial history.