Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture

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Summary: Pursuit of a New Paradigm
Review: Greene is on a mission to show that the South (especially the Chesapeake) represents the "normative" model of American development-not the New England model. To do so, he decries the standard "declension" model, based on the history of Puritan New England, and produces a "developmental" model that he proves was normative for all British New World colonies--here New England represents the exception, not the rule. He seeks to analyze three points. First, to analyze the assumptions that have emphasized the preeminence or normative character of the Orthodox Puritan colonies of New England in the early modern social development and formation of American culture. Second, to evaluate and compare among the experiences of other societies in the early modern British Empire and to formulate a model of colonial social development that made be more broadly applicable than the heretofore used declension model of British colonial history. Finally, to delineate the process by which the general American culture began to emerge out of several regional cultures during the century after 1660 and identifying the most important elements in that emerging culture. Colonial historians have used the declension model to explain the early experiences of the Orthodox European colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut. Greene proposes a developmental model which looks at historical change in new societies as a movement from the simple to the complex. The Chesapeake, being the oldest settle the region, experienced this model first and the others followed - except the New England region, which was atypical from all other British colonies. Green does not discuss Native Americans, and only superficially covers slaves. However, he admits to pursuing his argument with three assumptions: 1) the focus of the book is upon social development and religious, political, and economic developments are considered only as far as their social dimensions are concerned; 2) focus is upon European and African immigrants and their descendants - excludes Native Americans; and 3) attempts to avoid the "idol of origins" which assumes how an area appeared later in time was equivalent to how it began (concerns the subject specially of slavery in the South). An excellent book for any student of American history, it is well written and thoroughly researched. It discusses the major historians and arguments concerning colonial American history.

Rating:
Summary: Acclaimed, but not for me.
Review: In Pursuits of Happiness, Jack Greene's objective is to examine the social development and economic change in Great Britain's colonies from 1660 to 1760, and to observe the development of American culture emerging at the end of the American Revolution. He uses an overarching, macro-historical framework in which he looks at the British colonies in the Caribbean, mainland North America and Ireland and classifies each in to one of two models: a developmental pattern represented most clearly by the Chesapeake region, and a declension pattern, exemplified exclusively by the New England colonies "around which much British colonial history has been organized." (xi) Greene's developmental model is one in which settlements move from loosely organized, primitive ventures to economically highly elaborated, institutionally stable and socially mature provinces; in other words, they become "more settled, cohesive, and coherent." (81) He focuses almost exclusively upon refuting the conviction that New England was representative of British pre-Revolutionary colonization attempts, and maintains instead that the Chesapeake region was not only far more similar to early modern Britain than was New England, but that every other colony (including Ireland) mirrored the Chesapeake settlements. Although he offers a concluding chapter in which he describes the various mainland settlements as "becoming increasingly alike" (170) as the American Revolution approached, for the most part, Greene's New England is emphatically anomalous in the overall picture of Britain's colonies. To paint this historiographical portrait, however, Greene chooses a selective definition and application of "declension," ignores contradictory evidence, and reaches his foreordained conclusions based on what are obviously rigidly held assumptions. Perhaps it is Greene's relentless determination to debunk the traditional interpretation of early America in which New England is held to be "normative" (5) of Britain's colonial settlement that leads one to question his approach to this question and to cast some doubt as to the credibility of his argument. As one reviewer notes, Greene "resents the central position that New England has held" over the years in colonial historiography and "never relents in his quest for an alternative explanation." While it is of course perfectly legitimate and appropriate to search for such an alternative, Greene's decision to ignore some evidence and patterns that do not fit his model is to a large extent disingenuous. His selective handling of facts, woven into a conclusion so at odds with prior interpretations and so neatly packaged summon forth Professor Robert Berkhofer's admonition: "You should examine the author's main points, how they went about explicating them and the sets of assumptions that made for their works being exactly the way they are." This is not to object to Greene's refusal to conclude that colonial New England is the model for social development and that the Chesapeake is a deviant example of British colonization. Rather, we can look deeper in to Pursuits of Happiness and learn much from what we read and what we do not read, and consider Greene's assumptions and main points as Berkhofer recommends that we do. Greene's desire to see order, stability, and social maturation in the colonies he describes allows him to minimize and dehumanize slavery, and much else that is unpleasant, disorganized or objectionable in Britain's colonial provinces. Institutions and structures to him are aesthetically desirable, meaningful and define a modern society. He looks from the top down. Greene's use of this approach is why we do not "see" people in the book-slaves in particular are missing, but so too are New England farmers, women, American Indians, and others. This lack of human subjects is somewhat ironic, in that Greene's goal was to "formulate a model of social development." (xi, italics mine) Pursuits of Happiness is fundamentally a reactionary survey, aimed squarely at refuting those studies that have emphasized the typicality of the New England experience. Greene assumed preemptively that the Chesapeake was more reflective of early modern Britain, and more typical of her colonies. By emphasizing declension in New England and defining it in his own terms, Greene of course found what he was looking for: a Chesapeake model more modern and developed than New England, one that all other British colonies resembled. Only by ignoring contradictory experiences and discontinuities, as Cronon holds that all narratives do, does Greene succeed in finding his settled, cohesive, and coherent colonies.