The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America

Rating:
Summary: Reviews from a Master Historian
Review: Edmund S. Morgan has written many books on American History, including the recent _Benjamin Franklin_. He has also read a lot of books. As an expert in the history of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, he has for decades reviewed books on these eras for the _New York Review of Books_, and in the illuminating _The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America_ (Norton) are reprinted his essays on recent works of American history. They are "... a statement of what I have thought about early Americans during nearly seventy years in their company." In his introduction, he states that part of his philosophy of reading and writing history is "... taking what people have said at face value unless I find compelling reasons to discount it." The early Americans, for instance, said they were conducting a revolution because of taxation without representation. Other historians, viewing the events from different political stances, might have tried to demonstrate that this was a class struggle, or that the Americans had been eager to impose their own taxes rather than to do away with taxes from abroad. No, the American Revolution turned out, in Morgan's view, to be "... really what the Americans said it was." Readers of these essays will find them clear, free of cant, and remarkably charitable. It is important to note that many of the books covered are not about "new" books, but new editions of historical papers, like Federalist and Antifederalist writings or the correspondence of Jefferson and Madison. Morgan in reviews of these books gives his views directly on the historical matters contained, rather than on the opinion of any particular author.

Morgan's view of taking things as they seem does not prevent him from reporting surprises. In chapters on sexual relations in early America, he finds that carrying laws from the old country forbidding sex outside of marriage simply did not work. In the Carolinas, couples lived, as diarist William Byrd observed, "in comfortable fornication." In New England, sermons were delivered about the orgasmic delights of conversion and sexual comparisons were made between physical love and the love of Christ. Marriage was seen as a sexual state, and women were entitled to "that pang of pleasure" which comes from coitus. In New Haven, the strictest of Puritan colonies, a wife could divorce a husband who could produce no such pangs. Some towns had a bridal pregnancy rate of 40%. Although New England is often Morgan's focus, there are many essays on the South. He maintains that New Englanders left many records of what they thought and did, while Southerners left relatively little of such documentation. Several of the chapters here are particularly about slavery. The title of the book comes from an essay on Washington, who generally lost battles, had no known part in drafting provisions at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 over which he presided, and who is credited with some important state papers from his presidency which were mostly ghost-written. It isn't a great record when put that way, and yet Washington was beloved even by such leaders as Jefferson who strongly disagreed with many of his policies. "If they were so awed by Washington, they must have found something in him that is not immediately apparent in the public record." He had, it seems, a consuming passion to be honored, and behaved, from dancing to speechifying, in ways deliberately to cultivate esteem. He consciously pursued honor and power by means of deserving honor and power. Would that all our politicians afflicted with the same need took the same means to satisfy it.

Morgan's essays are exemplary in their clarity. He is appreciative of the thoughts of those even with whom he disagrees. He has a sly wit; he says of one author who repeatedly insists that it would be difficult to exaggerate this or that component of a society, "Some readers may feel that he has overcome the difficulty." While this is a collection of reviews rather than a comprehensive history, it throws light on many facets of the young America, and will be enjoyed by all with any interest in the period and in the American character.


Rating:
Summary: A Welcome Compendium from Edmund S. Morgan
Review: Ordinarily, books that are collections of articles that appeared elsewhere often do not live up to their promise. Have no fear--that most certainly is not the case here. This is so for several reasons. The first is the Morgan is Morgan--probably the dean of American colonial and early American historians, still at it as he nears 90 years old. Second, each of the individual pieces (which originally appeared in the New York Review of Books between 1974 and 2002) reflects the typical Morgan virtues--extraordinary command of the pertinent literature, judicious comments, quick to offer praise where it is due, reluctantly critical when necessary, but always moderate and extraordinarily thoughtful in his judgments. Third, the books that comprise the focus of the individual essays are among some of the most significant published in the field. This makes for lively discussion by Morgan. The book is divided into four sections: "New Englanders," "Southerners", "Revolutionaries" and "Questions of Culture." Some of the better essays are on Franklin, "Plantation Blues,""How the French Lost America," and "The Great Political Fiction." Never one for quantitative history ("counting and computing"), Morgan only becomes cranky when that topic presents itself, although he does unload on the Library of America's collection of "American Sermons." The book is simply a feast for those interested in this period and fine historical writing.

Rating:
Summary: A Welcome Compendium from Edmund S. Morgan
Review: Ordinarily, books that are collections of articles that appeared elsewhere often do not live up to their promise. Have no fear--that most certainly is not the case here. This is so for several reasons. The first is the Morgan is Morgan--probably the dean of American colonial and early American historians, still at it as he nears 90 years old. Second, each of the individual pieces (which originally appeared in the New York Review of Books between 1974 and 2002) reflects the typical Morgan virtues--extraordinary command of the pertinent literature, judicious comments, quick to offer praise where it is due, reluctantly critical when necessary, but always moderate and extraordinarily thoughtful in his judgments. Third, the books that comprise the focus of the individual essays are among some of the most significant published in the field. This makes for lively discussion by Morgan. The book is divided into four sections: "New Englanders," "Southerners", "Revolutionaries" and "Questions of Culture." Some of the better essays are on Franklin, "Plantation Blues,""How the French Lost America," and "The Great Political Fiction." Never one for quantitative history ("counting and computing"), Morgan only becomes cranky when that topic presents itself, although he does unload on the Library of America's collection of "American Sermons." The book is simply a feast for those interested in this period and fine historical writing.

Rating:
Summary: Morgan is the genuine article
Review: This elegant collection of essays is a tour de force. The variety and penetration of the 24 pieces from the "New York Review of Books" give the cumulative effect of a whirlwind sweeping across the landscape of early America. Each chapter is a book review, and Morgan sifts such insight from each work that you feel as if you simply must read it for yourself. Alas, you and I will likely not read as good of books simply because we're not the readers that Morgan is.

And it is just as likely that the authors of those books are not the writer he is, either (a happy exception being Morgan's mentor, Perry Miller, for whom Morgan displays an endearing affection throughout the book). Morgan's prose has an almost breezy ease to it, an ease that is oddly in synch with the thick, difficult sagacity within the words. Each sentence is its own kind of marvel, tightly constructed and packed with thought and often a sly humor. Take, for example, the seemingly innocuous following sentence: "Secular morality has given us a freedom we have long taken for granted, because it prevailed for a century and a half before it was enshrined in the First Amendment." Here, we see one of Morgan's subtle ironies, as morality is "secularized," or stripped of religion, and thus "enshrined," or held sacred. It is as if Morgan had spent half a century ruminating on just the right way to put it.

And that perhaps gets us closer to the most rewarding aspect of the book: Morgan's remarkable ruminating capacities. Everything that flows from his pen seems tempered with decades of reflection. As he says in his preface, "Since I can think only with pen in hand, my writing goes through many revisions, draft after draft, before I can be sure of exactly what I think." This approach of hard-won wisdom, molded "draft after draft," makes Morgan well worth the reading. And the illusion of ease--the feeling that he is conversing with you rather than writing at you--makes the reading quite the pleasure.

Rating:
Summary: Morgan is the genuine article
Review: This elegant collection of essays is a tour de force. The variety and penetration of the 24 pieces from the "New York Review of Books" give the cumulative effect of a whirlwind sweeping across the landscape of early America. Each chapter is a book review, and Morgan sifts such insight from each work that you feel as if you simply must read it for yourself. Alas, you and I will likely not read as good of books simply because we're not the readers that Morgan is.

And it is just as likely that the authors of those books are not the writer he is, either (a happy exception being Morgan's mentor, Perry Miller, for whom Morgan displays an endearing affection throughout the book). Morgan's prose has an almost breezy ease to it, an ease that is oddly in synch with the thick, difficult sagacity within the words. Each sentence is its own kind of marvel, tightly constructed and packed with thought and often a sly humor. Take, for example, the seemingly innocuous following sentence: "Secular morality has given us a freedom we have long taken for granted, because it prevailed for a century and a half before it was enshrined in the First Amendment." Here, we see one of Morgan's subtle ironies, as morality is "secularized," or stripped of religion, and thus "enshrined," or held sacred. It is as if Morgan had spent half a century ruminating on just the right way to put it.

And that perhaps gets us closer to the most rewarding aspect of the book: Morgan's remarkable ruminating capacities. Everything that flows from his pen seems tempered with decades of reflection. As he says in his preface, "Since I can think only with pen in hand, my writing goes through many revisions, draft after draft, before I can be sure of exactly what I think." This approach of hard-won wisdom, molded "draft after draft," makes Morgan well worth the reading. And the illusion of ease--the feeling that he is conversing with you rather than writing at you--makes the reading quite the pleasure.