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This collection of essays brings together the main historians of the Irish Revolution, 1913-1923. Through detailed research and wide-ranging analysis of key themes, they provide the most up-to-date answers to, and debate on, the fundamental questions concerning this period, including: what was the nature of the revolution; what were its causes; how was the war fought and ended; and what have been the repercussions? Essential reading for all those interested in Ireland and the study of revolution.
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Customer Reviews (3)

Great collection of stories
The book was a little confusing at first but never the less did its job in telling a bunch of great stories.I am sure that many did not know of these experiences during that time period. I glad my professor made us read it.

A Most Amazing Book
The first three "official" reviews of this book fail to convey the sheer original, revealing, even emotional nature of this book.Many Americans now accept that their patriotic Revolutionary ancestors--including the Founding Fathers--owned slaves.Some Americans are aware that many of these slaves fled to the British controlled areas and cities under the promise of gaining freedom. A few Americans may then know of what happened to these former slaves--how many were take off to Nova Scotia with thousands of white Loyalists. What Cassandra Pybus reveals in this book opens all this up into dimensions undreamed of by all but perhaps a literal handful of historians. And in fact, what she presents is more like a nightmare than a dream.In an impeccably researched and footnoted narrative, she first investigates those three relatively "knowns" that I referred to above, providing details that will astound most of us. And when she goes onto present the story of what happenened to most of these former slaves as they movd on not only to Nova Scotia and London but then on to Sierra Leone and Australia--well, it is history as revelation. Although Pybus stays rooted in the strictest procedures of the historian, the end effect is to feel you are reading a novel. But a novel describing events of such unnmitigated misery, of human suffering, of human cruelty, that no novelist would dare invent these happenings.I defy any reader to put the book down saying (a) "Oh, I had suspected all this might have happened" and (b) "In any case I can't see getting especially worked up over it."The end result is a book that both charges far more human beings than we have imagined with being cruel to African-Americans and at the same time informs us of how many of these same African-Americans endured these cruelties and utimately prevailed. In a word, I found it spellbinding!

A side of the American Revolution little known until now
While most American schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught of the American Revolution as a glorious struggle of backwoods colonials fighting for their freedom and independence against the world's most powerful empire, few, if any, are taught of the great tragedy experienced by African-Americans, many of them former slaves, who fought with or sided with the British in the hopes that they would secure their individual freedoms.I was one of those many schoolchildren inculcated in the myth of the Revolution, but I have since expanded my knowledge of the Revolution beyond the history texts.Despite this, I was not aware of the globe-circling stories of former slaves of the American Revolution as carefully documented and researched by Cassandra Pybus in "Epic Journeys of Freedom".But now that I am, I hope these stories become more widely known as examples of not only the failure of the American Revolution to live up to its ideals, but more important, as examples of the unquenchable human desire for freedom and the extent to which brave men and women will go to find it.

I cannot do justice to any of the individual stories in "Epic Journeys of Freedom" in this or any review, and much of the immediacy and drama of the stories come from the first-hand sources of the era that Pybus has collected and orchestrated into compelling narratives.By retelling the history of individual lives set within the context of the American Revolution and its aftermath, Pybus reduces a mythic, seminal event in America's founding to a personal level.The eyes through which we see the Revolution, however, belong not to the victors, but to the disenfranchised and dehumanized; America's victory meant their enslavement, so they fled the land of liberty to seek their own freedom across distant borders and oceans.

Some may ask why bring up more stories of America's past injustices when we have come so far in addressing them.We read these stories and remember their lives because they remind us why men and women have risked all and died for their freedom.They remind us of both our worse and better natures, and offer hope for a more just and free world. ... Read more

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In the volume which, with much diffidence, is here offered to the public, I have given, as far as I have considered it worth giving, my whole thought in a connected form on the nature, necessity, extent, authority, origin, ground, and constitution of government, and the unity, nationality, constitution, tendencies, and destiny of the American Republic. Many of the points treated have been from time to time discussed or touched upon, and many of the views have been presented, in my previous writings; but this work is newly and independently written from beginning to end, and is as complete on the topics treated as I have been able to make it.

I have taken nothing bodily from my previous essays, but I have used their thoughts as far as I have judged them sound and they came within the scope of my present work. I have not felt myself bound to adhere to my own past thoughts or expressions any farther than they coincide with my present convictions, and I have written as freely and as independently as if I had never written or published any thing before. I have never been the slave of my own past, and truth has always been dearer to me than my own opinions. This work is not only my latest, but will be my last on politics or government, and must be taken as the authentic, and the only authentic statement of my political views and convictions, and whatever in any of my previous writings conflicts with the principles defended in its pages, must be regarded as retracted, and rejected.

The work now produced is based on scientific principles; but it is an essay rather than a scientific treatise, and even good-natured critics will, no doubt, pronounce it an article or a series of articles designed for a review, rather than a book. It is hard to overcome the habits of a lifetime. I have taken some pains to exchange the reviewer for the author, but am fully conscious that I have not succeeded. My work can lay claim to very little artistic merit. It is full of repetitions; the same thought is frequently recurring,--the result, to some extent, no doubt, of carelessness and the want of artistic skill; but to a greater extent, I fear, of "malice aforethought." In composing my work I have followed, rather than directed, the course of my thought, and, having very little confidence in the memory or industry of readers, I have preferred, when the completeness of the argument required it, to repeat myself to encumbering my pages with perpetual references to what has gone before.

That I attach some value to this work is evident from my consenting to its publication; but how much or how little of it is really mine, I am quite unable to say. I have, from my youth up, been reading, observing, thinking, reflecting, talking, I had almost said writing, at least by fits and starts, on political subjects, especially in their connection with philosophy, theology, history, and social progress, and have assimilated to my own mind what it would assimilate, without keeping any notes of the sources whence the materials assimilated were derived. I have written freely from my own mind as I find it now formed; but how it has been so formed, or whence I have borrowed, my readers know as well as I. All that is valuable in the thoughts set forth, it is safe to assume has been appropriated from others. Where I have been distinctly conscious of borrowing what has not become common property, I have given credit, or, at least, mentioned the author's name, with three important exceptions which I wish to note more formally.

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On 15 March 1781, the armies of Nathanael Greene and Lord Charles Cornwallis fought one of the bloodiest and most intense engagements of the American Revolution at the Guilford Courthouse in piedmont North Carolina. Although victorious, Cornwallis declared the conquest of the Carolinas impossible. He made the fateful decision to march into Virginia, eventually leading his army to the Yorktown surrender and clearing the way for American independence.

In the first book-length examination of the Guilford Courthouse engagement, Lawrence Babits and Joshua Howard—drawing from hundreds of previously underutilized pension documents, muster rolls, and personal accounts—piece together what really happened on the wooded plateau in what is today Greensboro, North Carolina. They painstakingly identify where individuals stood on the battlefield, when they were there, and what they could have seen, thus producing a bottom-up story of the engagement. The authors explain or discount several myths surrounding this battle while giving proper place to long-forgotten heroic actions. They elucidate the actions of the Continentals, British regulars, North Carolina and Virginia militiamen, and the role of American cavalry. Their detailed and comprehensive narrative extends into individual combatants' lives before and after the Revolution. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

A FINE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE SLIGHTLY UNDONE BY INFORMATION OVERLOAD
"Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse" by Lawrence E. Babits and Joshua B. Howard is the long-awaited historic look at one of the American Revolution's most important, yet most overlooked, conflicts. It was here, on the Fifteenth of March, 1781, that the armies of American General Nathanial Greene and British General Charles Cornwallis clashed on the outskirts of Guilford Courthouse in what is modern-day Greensboro, North Carolina. Although Cornwallis won the battle, he lost a fourth of his men, and the outcome of the battle led directly to his abandoning North Carolina for Virginia, and to ultimate defeat at Yorktown just seven months later.
While Babits and Howard present a fine account of the events leading up to the battle, the battle itself, and the ultimate aftermath, the problem is that they present a little too much information. For the common reader and the historian alike, it would take several reads to fully understand all of what happened on the fields and in the woods surrounding Guilford Courthouse. Still, it offers a fascinating look at the battle that historians will find indispensable. For the casual reader wanting to learn about the battle, I recommend Another Such Victory: The Story of the American Defeat at Guilford Courthouse that Helped Win the War for Independence. But overall, this is a well-written account of the battle that, although lost the British, would lead to ultimate victory in the American War for Independence. Recommended.
Grade: B+

Another success from Babits
This is another well researched history from Babits. Following on his history of Cowpens, he again uses the pension records of southern veterans as a primary source. I love the way he starts from scratch, not depending on ths same sources as previous histories. These two books have been a breath of fresh air in reading up on the southern campaign of the war. I am looking forward to his next topic. My only complaint is that I could use more, detailed, maps.

The best account of Guilford 1781 yet published...
I concur with the review by Kenneth Haynes, who has much of interest to say about this little studied or understood battle which amounted to Greene's finest.

It would earn five stars by me but for the inexplicable failure by the authors to include the sort of topo maps which contributed so much to Mr. Babits' excellent 1998 work on Cowpens: 'A Devil of a Whipping'.

Mr. Moore's maps do not measure up to those he prepared for his own excellent study of the Civil War battle of Bentonville. Somehow his cartographic effort here does not measure up to his previous standard. For example, Babits' account contains many references to swales, ditches, hills, rises, ridges, etc. to which various units withdrew, fought over, or took, only to lose such points in the course of the confused fighting. It would have been a real plus to have included detailed topographics for each of the four (or five) major action areas rather than relying on the info-deficient tour map provided by the NPS --

A minor complaint concerns the two regional maps borrowed from Richard K. Showman's superb volumes of Greene's correspondence published by the Rhode Island Historical Society. References are made to mills, fords, locales, that are not indicated on Showman's maps. An overlay could have elucidated the movements of the major forces prior to and after the Guilford action. So one is left nearly as confused in some ways as before.

Although the authors include the two period maps of the battle well known to enthusiasts, they make no effort to analyse these documents as to their accuracy (or inaccuracy) and omissions. This is a pity since it would have been fairly simple to make a comparison with USGS topos and with an overlay show the likely movements of units as compared to the extremely schematic indications shown.

There is no accounting for the authors lack of diligence with regard to the particulars of the ground, since it was largely the detailed analysis of the ground, apart from the extensive use of pension records, that raised 'Devil of a Whipping' well above the ordinary.

I also concur with the reviewer who remarked negatively on the preliminary history leading up to Guilford and the epilogue describing the later careers of certain of the most notable participants. Treacy ('Prelude to Yorktown') covers the former with a great deal more verve and the latter seems extraneous.

A much needed augmentation to the scanty history of this battle but one wishes the authors had made an effort to analyse the ground more intimately. As a result several interesting hypotheses by the authors seem less substantiated than might have been possible. If the topography and vegetation has changed significantly since 1781, and surely there have been some changes, such as predominant species, the lack of understory then due to swine grazing, the authors do not provide a clue. The only reference to modern historical archaeological discoveries is the cluster of musket balls found in the region where Skipwith's battalion fought. No information is provided as to how thoroughly other parts of the site have been explored. On the basis of this one find, the authors conclude that Stevens' brigade fought ferociously. Well they may have, but that's mighty scanty evidence.

Still in all this will probably remain for many years the best source of information for students of Greene's Southern Campaign of 1780-1781 and provides a fresh starting point for further argument, opinion, and hopefully, topographic analysis.

Incisive and thorough examination of battle and strategic effect
Professor Babits examines the battle of Guilford Courthouse from a historian's viewpoint, describing the overall effects on the war as well as the tactical details.

Babit's Guilford
I have read this book twice and find it to be extremely thorough in its presentation of the circumstances around the battle as well as the battle itself. Dr. Babits has obviously, along with Josh Howard done a very extensive amount of research of files, records and information that heretofore had either been ignored or not discussed for whatever reason. They have dispelled numerous myths and given us a much better understanding of the battle itself. I feel this will for years to come be the definitive book on The Battle of Guilford Courthouse and would highly recommend it to both history fan and everyday reader looking for a good book to read. ... Read more

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This volume gathers more than one hundred letters--most of them previously unpublished--written by Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814). Warren, whose works include a three-volume history of the American Revolution as well as plays and poems, was a major literary figure of her era and one of the most important American women writers of the eighteenth century. Her correspondents included Martha and George Washington, Abigail and John Adams, and Catharine Macaulay.

Until now, Warren's letters have been published sporadically, in small numbers, and mainly to help complete the collected correspondence of some of the famous men to whom she wrote. This volume addresses that imbalance by focusing on Warren's letters to her family members and other women. As they flesh out our view of Warren and correct some misconceptions about her, the letters offer a wealth of insights into eighteenth-century American culture, including social customs, women's concerns, political and economic conditions, medical issues, and attitude s on child rearing.

Letters Warren sent to other women who had lost family members (Warren herself lost three children) reveal her sympathies; letters to a favorite son, Winslow, show her sharing her ambitions with a child who resisted her advice. What readers of other Warren letters may have only sensed about her is now revealed more fully: she was a woman of considerable intellect, religious faith, compassion, literary intelligence, and acute sensitivity to the historical moment of even everyday events in the new American republic. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"Goddess of The North Wind"
If Boreas (pg 24) was the God of the North Wind, then Mercy Otis surely was it's Goddess, as nothing could be more symbolic of the Revolution than a cold wind blowing down across the new America from the outerlands; perhaps just as symbolic were her own words referencing the unrest, which I found enchanting:

**"As we often see the most serene sky after the storms of the natural world have subsided, we may yet hope for at least a temporary calm in the political hemisphere - if a few baleful meteors which presently infect it were once again reduced to their original insignificancy."** page 25

Mercy Otis was, like Abigail Adams, a lady educated beyond the scope of most women of the age, blessed of life station, endowed with a high level of intelligence and sophistication, and armed with the unusual confidence to speak her mind even if the environment of peer disapproval suggested to her that she might remain silent and let the "other sex" handle matters of politics. There are several instances of this phenomenon within this selection of personal correspondences. She also gave her husband, James Warren credit where it was due when speaking thus, noting that he, unlike some others, "encouraged" her participation in political authorship. Where Abigail Adams had, in the beginning, only the husband in politics, Mercy Otis had one additional asset in her "current events" arsenal:a brother, Attorney James Otis Jr., a firebrand of energy supported by a working knowledge of the Law, endowed with original ideas and courage of convictions that helped shape the very foundation of the Revolution in it's fledgling stages through (but not limited to) his very public renouncing of the infamous "writs of assistance" - 'broad power' based search and seizure warrants that had no time limits or subject matter ascribed them but were solely intended as instruments of control.

Mercy was a prolific, intriguing writer of elegant prose, carefully chosen - which adds much interest to her work.I began with her collection of correspondence, chiefly because, while reading the works of the Revolutionists, I found their letters and/or diaries to be the most interesting as they were so open and honest.In the letters are to be found their deepest thoughts, their beliefs, and their truest characters swept free of most of the need for a proper amount of charade, although it is also true that they cautiously suspected they may become inspirations of posterity as well.Many things never written in the historical accountings about the Revolution or it's founding citizens are felt deeply by the individual reader on their own personal level when these remarkable letters are delved into.These driven and selfless, tough-fibred people may have passed into History, but they will never die - their words live beyond what is yet "below the stars.."(pg 24)and one single strand is common to all of them - the passion born of knowledge that they did it for the generations that would surely follow them in freedom if they prevailed in the Quest.

Other "Books of Letters" highly recommended for the American History enthusiast as all of them are gemstones:

** "My Dearest Friend" by John and Abigail Adams

**"The Adams-Jefferson Letters" by John, Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson

**"George Washington - Writings" - this is in a diary/letter format

a woman's letters to relatives and friends during the formation of the United States
Letters of Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) have been published elsewhere. However, these were limited mostly to her letters to important figures in American history such as Martha Washington and Abigail Adams. A few of these letters are published here. But the aim of letters of this volume is to make available Warren's equally informative letters to others during the momentous era including the Revolutionary War.

The editors "focus on two groups of correspondents, women and family members." There are letters to over 19 women, plus ten letters to family members, most of these to her second son. The total of 106 letters reflect the relationships, thoughts, and values of a well-to-do woman in the Boston area during this formative period of the United States. The editors' introduction gives a biographical background of Warren and assesses her as a prime example of the place of the common practice of letter-writing in her time.
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 From the sixteenth to early-nineteenth century, four times more Africans than Europeans crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. While this forced migration stripped slaves of their liberty, it failed to destroy many of their cultural practices, which came with Africans to the New World. In  Working the Diaspora, Frederick Knight examines work cultures on both sides of the Atlantic, from West and West Central Africa to British North America and the Caribbean. Knight demonstrates that the knowledge that Africans carried across the Atlantic shaped Anglo-American agricultural development and made particularly important contributions to cotton, indigo, tobacco, and staple food cultivation. The book also compellingly argues that the work experience of slaves shaped their views of the natural world. Broad in scope, clearly written, and at the center of current scholarly debates,  Working the Diaspora challenges readers to alter their conceptual frameworks about Africans by looking at them as workers who, through the course of the Atlantic slave trade and plantation labor, shaped the development of the Americas in significant ways.

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The United States is a nation of joiners. Ever since Alexis de Tocqueville published his observations in Democracy in America, Americans have recognized the distinctiveness of their voluntary tradition. In a work of political, legal, social, and intellectual history, focusing on the grassroots actions of ordinary people, Neem traces the origins of this venerable tradition to the vexed beginnings of American democracy in Massachusetts.

Neem explores the multiple conflicts that produced a vibrant pluralistic civil society following the American Revolution. The result was an astounding release of civic energy as ordinary people, long denied a voice in public debates, organized to advocate temperance, to protect the Sabbath, and to abolish slavery; elite Americans formed private institutions to promote education and their stewardship of culture and knowledge. But skeptics remained. Followers of Jefferson and Jackson worried that the new civil society would allow the organized few to trump the will of the unorganized majority. When Tocqueville returned to France, the relationship between American democracy and its new civil society was far from settled.

The story Neem tells is more pertinent than ever—for Americans concerned about their own civil society, and for those seeking to build civil societies in emerging democracies around the world.

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In 1663, an indentured servant, Anne Orthwood, was impregnated with twins in a tavern in Northampton County, Virginia. Orthwood died soon after giving birth; one of the twins, Jasper, survived. Orthwood's illegitimate pregnancy sparked four related cases that came before the Northampton magistrates -- who coincidentally held court in the same tavern -- between 1664 and 1686. These interrelated cases and the decisions rendered in them are notable for the ways in which the Virginia colonists modified English common law traditions and began to create their own, as well as what they reveal about cultural and economic values in an Eastern shore community. Through these cases, the very reasons legal systems are created are revealed, namely, the maintenance of social order, the protection of property interests, the protection of personal reputation, and personal liberty. Through Jasper Orthwood's life, the treatment of the poor in small communities is set in sharp relief. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Nice
I got this book for a college course and it was shipped to me fast and I had it by my first class in the course so I have nothing to complain about!

Anne Orthwood's Bastard:Sex and Law on Early Virginia
As a history buff, I quite enjoyed it. Everything was taken from actual court records. I would recommend it!

Candid, accessible, and fascinating
This incisive work illuminates Virginia's colonial history in personal detail: legal procedures, community structures, and economic and political relationships.Researching primary sources, Professor Pagan brings the narrative to life with persuasive insights into decisions and events as the participants must have planned them: their ambitions, fears, successes, and failures.I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in social or legal history.

History and Passion
Prof. John Ruston Pagan has plucked a young 17th Century woman from deepest obscurity to become the subject of his book: Anne Orthwood's Bastard : Sex and Law in Early Virginia.This is a scholarly effort - it is heavily footnoted and supported by a large bibliography - and a first-rate work of investigation and authorship.Central to Anne Orthwood's detailed history was the availability of original records from the earliest days of English settlement in America.These records are preserved in an old courthouse on Virginia's Eastern Shore.Dating from 1632, they are said to be the oldest English-language court records in America.

First a word about "bastard." Today, it is little more than a curse word. As recently as the 1930s, however, it was still imprinted on birth certificates and, as in 1632, described a child born out of wedlock. In 1632, however, bastardy was considered a serious breach of morals, as well, and was deeply resented for the costs it might impose on taxpayers and church parishioners.Caring for bastards was provided for in detail by church and state law.Someone must pay for the midwife, lying-in expenses, wet nurse, etc. and fund the child's early years. That person was the putative father, if he could be discovered, and if he had any money.Failing that, the church and state stepped in. Punishment, too, must be portioned out upon the mother and father for their immoral behavior - and shame would burden the blameless child.

Anne is, herself, born out of wedlock. Rather than bear the humiliating penance the church imposes, Anne's mother escapes to the city of Bristol.That city just happens to be England's western port and the jumping-off point for the New World.Hoping to escape the stain of her origins and her mind filled with exaggerated stories of abundant potential husbands there, Anne indentures herself to a colony-bound sea-captain.He, in turn, sails to the Eastern Shore and sells her services - her indenture - to William Kendall, an upright, uptight, and upwardly-striving plantation owner.

When Anne gets too friendly with Kendall's nephew, John, she is sold off to another land-owner who sells her to yet a third.In the meantime, however, she has become pregnant by John.There can be no marriage, however, because John must "marry up." Conviction for fornication is out, too, since it would tarnish the uncle's reputation.Anne's joyless life comes to an end, when, in the midst of childbirth, she is forced to reveal the father's name, following which she dies. In death, even her honesty is impugned.Anne's son is a healthy baby.With only eight months between conception and birth, a healthy baby is not possible - so testifies the ignorant midwife.

Anne's son, Jasper, lives and is quickly indentured (under English law) for the first 24 years of his life.Anne's third indenturer sues to recover what he paid for Anne's unfulfilled service. Caveat venditor prevails over caveat emptor.A series of suits deal with who is the father - John Kendall is named - what he must pay, and what morals charge he might be stuck with.John pays the bills, but thanks to the machinations of Uncle William, he is found innocent of fornication.

This is an American story - it has a happy ending.Jasper sues for his freedom at the age of 22.The English Poor Law of 1601 specified emancipation at 24.However, in 1672, when Jasper was nine years old, the Virginia Assembly voted to lower the age to 21.Would the court agree that the Virginia law could take precedence over English law and that it could do so retroactively also?Yes!Jasper wins! He wins, in part, because of the quiet intercession of his guilty great uncle, William Kendall, who, incredibly,is now Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Dr. Pagan is a law professor and a scholar with a law degree from Harvard and a PhD. from Oxford.His purpose in writing the book is to show how English common law, rigid and steeped in precedent, was gradually and ever so gingerly adjusted by parvenu JPs and magistrates to meet the special needs of the colony. The sad life and death of Anne Orthwood and the freedom of her son, generating no less than four court cases and, spanning 22 years, serve as an armature around which to wind American legal development.It also makes for a great story.I have to agree with Dr. Pagan: Anne's story is the stuff of great opera.Where is her Verdi or Puccini?

It's a great read
This scholarly work of legal history comes in a surprising package -- a gripping tale of early Virginia families and early colonial life and the economy.What a great way to learn about the development of American laws and their foundations!!It is so well written that I didn't want it to end. ... Read more

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A rich and rewarding investigation of the role of the newspapers in defining race, color, and slavery at the birth of the American nation. Bradley's analysis of slavery as metaphor in revolutionary-era journalism becomes a powerful explanation of how the patriot press found the language that disseminated ideas and attitudes on free African Americans and slaves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Provocative
Thought provoking and controversial to be sure.Nevertheless, a scholarly piece of work from a critcal historian who is not afraid to expose truth -- even if it is uncomfortable.

Terrible.
Academics generally make little money, so instead they live for their 15 minutes of fame. To obtain this, they try to stir up controversy about a chosen issue to gather attention to themselves, whether or not their claims are actually true. Such is the case with this book. With Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution Ms. Bradley seeks to rewrite American history in a way that will draw more attention to herself. She does this by twisting the truth, taking quotes out of context, and sometimes resorting to making up "facts" that suit her thesis. This is a typical "bash-the-founding-fathers-book" focusing much on Adams. She attempts to portray the founding fathers as insensitive scum that care nothing of poor, suffering slaves. She fails to take into account society's ideals of the time and what was considered normal. She fails to recognize the fact that had the founding fathers put full support into anything as radical (at the time) as freeing the slaves they would have lost all support from the colonists and the American Revolution would have lost its momentum.

Stay away from this, it's not worth your time.

And if you are forced to read it for class, beware that it's hard to sell this thing. Nobody wants it. I have been to several different bookstores that won't touch it. ... Read more

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A new breed of journalists came to the fore in post-revolutionary America--fiercely partisan, highly ideological, and possessed of a bold sense of vocation and purpose as they entered the fray of political debate. Often condemned by latter-day historians and widely seen in their own time as a threat to public and personal civility, these colorful figures emerge in this provocative new book as the era's most important agents of political democracy.
-Through incisive portraits of the most influential journalists of the 1790s--William Cobbett, Benjamin Franklin Bache, Philip Freneau, Noah Webster, John Fenno, and William Duane--Scandal and Civility moves beyond the usual cast of "revolutionary brothers" and "founding fathers" to offer a fresh perspective on a seemingly familiar story. Marcus Daniel demonstrates how partisan journalists, both Federalist and Democratic-Republican, were instrumental in igniting and expanding vital debates over the character of political leaders, the nature of representative government, and, ultimately, the role of the free press itself. Their rejection of civility and self-restraint--not even icons like George Washington were spared their satirical skewerings--earned these men the label "peddlers of scurrility." Yet, as Daniel shows, by breaking with earlier conceptions of "impartial" journalism, they challenged the elite dominance of political discourse and helped fuel the enormous political creativity of the early republic.
-Daniel's nuanced and penetrating narrative captures this key period of American history in all its contentious complexity. And in today's climate, when many decry media "excesses" and the relentlessly partisan and personal character of political debate, his book is a timely reminder that discord and difference were essential to the very creation of our political culture.

Customer Reviews (1)

Taking the issues seriously
Marcus Daniel is on a mission to rehabilitate (or at least better situate) a group of five major newspaper editors from the America of the 1790s from the dismissive attitudes of several generations of historians who bought too much in to that whole press objectivity thing. But here's the cool thing: he's doing it in such a way that us general interest readers can follow along just fine. And he's doing it at a time when a lot of the same handwringing that was going on back then is going on now.

Now before I go any further let me state right out that this book would bore many people to if not tears at least reddened, watery eyes. But I really enjoyed it.

What I liked most about Scandal and Civility is that Daniel takes his six journalists -- Benjamin Franklin Bache, William Cobbett, Philip Freneau, John Fenno William Duane and Noah Webster -- and sets up their entry in to the field, moves in to their back story and then digs in to their role in the journalism and political battles of the 1790s. The result is that the deeper in to the book you get, the better you understand the issues they were writing about and the more you can contextualize their editorial stances, political ties, reactions to and participation in the discourse of scandal and scurrility, etc. And in the end, Daniel makes his point, I think. That is: partisan journalism wasn't just some ridiculous sideshow, but rather was an important part of the political debates of the time, of the education of both politicians and voters, and of the (still debated) meaning of a free society with a free press. In the end, even one doesn't fully like each of the six men, one at least has an understanding of and perhaps even some admiration of them for sticking to their guns in the face of opposition (including politically-motivated legal action). It also totally explodes the whole model of objective journalism preached (if not actually practiced) for so many years in America. Yeah, these guys could be totally over the top, but at least they weren't trying to cloak their partisanship.

As Daniel writes near the end of the book:

"They lived in a time of political passion and intense partisan conflict. Like our own. And it was from this conflict that their own great acts of collective political creativity emerged: the Declaration of Independence, the founding of the American Republic, the establishment of the Constitution, and the federal government, the Bill of Rights, the creation of the Supreme Court, and the federal judiciary, and the invention of new institutions to express and organize public opinion, including political parties and a free press. Without such conflict, the political triumphs of the early Republic would have been impossible and even unimaginable.

"... As Americans today grapple with the problem of creating a democratic and publicly accountable media, they need to embrace political conflict and difference, the clash of divergent ideological perspectives, and the problems of political interpretation they impose on us all, not yearn for a simpler time when the press was 'objective,' when all honest, civic-minded people agreed, and when political differences could be resolved by the exercise of impartial rationality. Such a time never existed, and certainly it did not exist in the early American Republic."

Understandably, the passage of time and the writing of history puts a patina over certain epochs. Daniel argues that the Republic succeeded in part because of the partisan writing of national newspapers not in spite of it. The Founding Fathers were not noble creatures who had to rise above the journalistic hackery of the time in order to form the great institutions that have stood the test of time -- they were in the mix (sometimes financially even, very much part of that ferment of debate and political maneuvering. Here's the thing though: this book is an important corrective. But as one gets to know these six men, one realizes that even with all the scandal, they brought with them a certain learning and passion for issues. Sure, there was a lot about character and personality. But one wonders how these six outcasts would feel about the emphasis on celebrity (even in political circles) today. ... Read more

Product Description
The Founding Fathers--their most important speeches, letters, and writings--brought together in a single edition

The Founding Fathers--Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison. Subjects of seemingly infinite biographies, they are rarely allowed to speak to us in their own words. But it was their words that mattered most to them. As James Madison once wrote, "the biography of an author must be a history of his writings." Here, finally, these towering figures come together in one volume--in conversation with each other, and with us.

The Founders were thinking revolutionaries--they read, questioned, debated, and, most of all, wrote. They theorized about government and political institutions; considered the problem of parties and factions; and reflected on religion and education. In this volume, eminent historian Susan Dunn brings together the Founders' most important letters, speeches, and essays and sets them in the context of their lives and times.

Through their words, the Founders created the first democracy of the modern world. Their courage, imagination, and genius would never be surpassed. Here they are, in the present tense of their extraordinary lives. To truly understand them, this is where we must begin. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Definitely Worth Buying
Yes, the text selections could use some more contextualization, but all in all, it's a very convenient and useful collection.

Great potential, poor execution
This book contains a diverse selection of the writings of five major figures in early American history: George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.Letters, essays, and speeches ranging across their entire adult lives provide great insight into these men, the times they lived in, and the evolution of their thought and character.We first meet Washington, for example, as a prickly young man very concerned with his honor and his station, but we watch him mellow and mature across the pages and the years.

Unfortunately, much of the value of the book is undermined by the fact that the writings are presented with virtually no context, other than brief biographical and chronological sketches for each man.This is especially problematic for the letters, which make sense only within the context of an ongoing correspondence.We are presented, for example, with Washington's May 22, 1782 letter to Colonel Lewis Nicola, in which Washington excoriates and reprimands Nicola for entertaining some proposal.To find out what that proposal was, however, I had to resort to Google (Nicola proposed that Washington should make himself King of the United States).A few sentences introducing each item or a few pages of explanatory footnotes or endnotes would have solved this problem, and made Something That Will Surprise the World a far more valuable book.

As it stands, I can recommend it only half-halfheartedly.
... Read more

Product Description
R. M. Ballantyne (1825-1894) was a Scottish juvenile fiction writer. Born Robert Michael Ballantyne in Edinburgh, he was part of a famous family of printers and publishers. In 1848 he published his first book, Hudson's Bay: or, Life in the Wilds of North America. For some time he was employed by Messrs Constable, the publishers, but in 1856 he gave up business for the profession of literature, and began the series of adventure stories for the young with which his name is popularly associated. The Young Fur-Traders (1856), The Coral Island (1857), The World of Ice (1859), Ungava: A Tale of Eskimo Land (1857), The Dog Crusoe (1860), The Lighthouse (1865), Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines (1868), The Pirate City (1874), Erling the Bold (1869), The Settler and the Savage (1877), and other books, to the number of upwards of a hundred, followed in regular succession, his rule being in every case to write as far as possible from personal knowledge of the scenes he described. ... Read more

Product Description
Over the course of a two hundred year period, women's domestic labor gradually lost its footing as a recognized aspect of economic life in America.The image of the colonial "goodwife," valued for her contribution to household prosperity, had been replaced by the image of a "dependent" and a "non-producer."This book is a history of housework in the United States prior to the Civil War.More particularly, it is a history of women's unpaid domestic labor in the context of the emergence of an industrialized society in the northern United States.Boydston argues that just as a capitalist economic order had first to teach that wages were the measure of a man's worth, it had at the same time, implicitly or explicitly, to teach that those who did not draw wages were dependent and not essential to the "real economy."Developing a striking account of the gender and labor systems that characterized industrializing America, Boydston explains how this effected the devaluation of women's unpaid labor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Pastoralization of Housework
I have to modify significantly the previous reviewer's take on this book. Boydston does not argue that women did all the work while men got all the pay. What she argues is that because women did as much unpaid work as they did, factories benefited more from male labor than they might have if they'd considered and economically rewarded the female labor that went into making the male a productive worker. In other words, capitalists effectively got two for the price of one when they hired a male worker. Without a female working for free at home while practicing home economics to keep expenses low, the American labor-profit system in the early republic would have been unsustainable. To make this system palatable, Boydston argues in her concluding chapter (indeed, the chapter that really is the point of the book), the culture generated a pastoral mystique of housework . . . images and ways of talking about housework that made it seem not only natural, but part of the beauty and splendor of nature.

The previous reviewer's take suggests that this book in some way could be read as perpetuating a simplistic male/female gender war mentality. Instead, where this book really leads is to a common enemy of the mass of men and women: an exploitative political economy that thrives on the poverty of the family. Women entering the marketplace has done little to solve the problem. Indeed, what Boydston shows is that women have always been in the marketplace. If you think about it after reading this book, it becomes pretty clear that in the postmodern, post industrial age, capital is still getting two workers for the price of one: women working for less pay than men and men working for less pay than they have before. Meanwhile, the economy absorbs the on average lower female wage in a network of childcare services (daycare, formula, etc.) and "busy lifestyle" services (convenience food, maid services, etc.) that leave the situation little changed. Meanwhile, of course, the marketing machine continues working overtime to naturalize this situation.

The labors of a housewife -- now and then
Boydson goes to prove that the average woman ha had to work long and hard hours that have been often under paid and overworked while the men get their payment, the women must endure long hours and work extra hard.Thisbook seeks to tell how the women have built the economy and have been oneof the major leaders yet do not get the credit that they deserve.Thinkabout the long hours put in spinning, canning, and doing the house workwithout air conditioning and yet still how it is today! This si the book toread for all historians. ... Read more

Product Description
The first slaves imported to America did not see themselves as "African" but rather as Temne, Igbo, or Yoruban. In Becoming African in America, James Sidbury reveals how an African identity emerged in the late eighteenth-century Atlantic world, tracing the development of "African" from a degrading term connoting savage people to a word that was a source of pride and unity for the diverse victims of the Atlantic slave trade.
In this wide-ranging work, Sidbury first examines the work of black writers--such as Ignatius Sancho in England and Phillis Wheatley in America--who created a narrative of African identity that took its meaning from the diaspora, a narrative that began with enslavement and the experience of the Middle Passage, allowing people of various ethnic backgrounds to become "African" by virtue of sharing the oppression of slavery. He looks at political activists who worked within the emerging antislavery moment in England and North America in the 1780s and 1790s; he describes the rise of the African church movement in various cities--most notably, the establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as an independent denomination--and the efforts of wealthy sea captain Paul Cuffe to initiate a black-controlled emigration movement that would forge ties between Sierra Leone and blacks in North America; and he examines in detail the efforts of blacks to emigrate to Africa, founding Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Elegantly written and astutely reasoned, Becoming African in America weaves together intellectual, social, cultural, religious, and political threads into an important contribution to African American history, one that fundamentally revises our picture of the rich and complicated roots of African nationalist thought in the U.S. and the black Atlantic. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An outstanding, detailed survey
The first slaves to arrive in America identified themselves by their place of origin: Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic tells of how their African identity and roots emerged in the late 18th century Atlantic world, using the works of black writers of the times who created a narrative of African-American identity. College-level collections strong in black or ethnic studies will welcome a history that considers who various ethnic backgrounds became `African' because of their shared slavery experience. An outstanding, detailed survey emerges which blends these rich source writings with a history of ethnic identity development. ... Read more

Product Description
After 1776, the former American colonies began to reimagine themselves as a unified, self-created community. Technologies had an important role in the resulting national narratives, and a few technologies assumed particular prominence. Among these were the axe, the mill, the canal, the railroad, and the irrigation dam. In this book David Nye explores the stories that clustered around these technologies. In doing so, he rediscovers an American story of origins, with America conceived as a second creation built in harmony with God's first creation.While mainstream Americans constructed technological foundation stories to explain their place in the New World, however, marginalized groups told other stories of destruction and loss. Native Americans protested the loss of their forests, fishermen resisted the construction of dams, and early environmentalists feared the exhaustionof resources. A water mill could be viewed as the kernel of a new community or as a new way to exploit labor. If passengers comprehended railways as part of a larger narrative about American expansion and progress, many farmers attacked railroad land grants. To explore these contradictions, Nye devotes alternating chapters to narratives of second creation and to narratives of those who rejected it.Nye draws on popular literature, speeches, advertisements, paintings, and many other media to create a history of American foundation stories. He shows how these stories were revised periodically, as social and economic conditions changed, without ever erasing the earlier stories entirely. The image of the isolated frontier family carving a homestead out of the wilderness with an axe persists to this day, alongside later images and narratives. In the book's conclusion, Nye considers the relation between these earlier stories and such later American developments as the conservation movement, narratives of environmental recovery, and the idealization of wilderness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

revealing engagement of "technological narratives" and their counternarratives
As the internet, cell phone and laptop continue to be proclaimed and experienced as uniters of a global social and economic world, David Nye's gathering of the narratives of earlier technologies and their world shaping capacities is both timely and revealing.

From the American axe to irrigation, Nye shows how stories were developed and repeated which portrayed the continent as "in need" of "completion" by human effort. He shows how these narratives replaced the previous generation of "conquest narratives" in which colonists confronted and were confronted by "savages." Now, the "savages" are gone, replaced by an empty landscape awaiting the surveyor's measure, the pioneer's axe, the mill's water power, the railroad's steam and so forth.

Wonderfully, he uncovers some forgotten counter-stories as well. Who knew or remembered that the 1850s included predictions that technological abuse of the earth would result in climate change and species loss? One can hear and see both the story of American triumph over nature and the correlative tragedy of environmental and social destruction that have come in the wake of that "triumph."

Nye's book was a pleasure to read, filled with interesting anecdotes and deeply reflective insights that reveal a sharply defined pattern over two hundred years of American relationship with technology and the earth.

Interestings but does not explain its thesis well
This book attempts to make an argument that America is a "second creation" but in the course of the book does not really define what he means by this. It is an interesting recount of American technological history and was fairly well done. The book is written by a scholar in Denmark and the European perspective was the most fascinating part.The book examines the role of environmental history in addition to technology.It argues that mills, grid patterns, dams and resources, as well as an esoteric idea of human entropy.This attempt at science is very weak and does not make a favorable impression.Ruth Cowan's book provides a better example of how technology developed although this is still a good start. It is worth a read but can be trying in its theoretical stance at times.

Great Book
This book is great if you are interested in the history of Americans feeling entitled to everything.Through the use of several historical narratives, the author outlines how manifest destiny was justified and continually affirmed by stories that abandon scarcity and preservation for faith in natural abundance.Nye takes the approach of telling the mainstream foudation story, such as the story of the axe and the mill from the perspective of the settlers/mainstream Americans, and in the following chapter gives the perspective of those not in the mainstream (such as the Native Americans and environmentalists).This approach to writing gives the book a Zinn-like quality; and may have been written in this way to piggy-back on the popularity of "A People's History of the United States," which was originally released in 1980, and enjoyed a popular resurgence in 2003.I enjoyed this book greatly.

draws together U.S. history and environmentalism
This short book showed me a great deal about both U.S. history and environmentalism. The extensive notes and huge bibliography mark the book not just as inviting severe academic scrutiny but as a pithy summary of a lifetime of information. If my library was as large as this bibliography, I'd feel obligated to open it to the public.

The book is organized around technologies that were used in the white settlement of the U.S.: the different and more efficient American axe (and the log cabin), the water powered mill, the canal and the railroad, and irrigation infrastructure such as dams. With these various technogies over time settlers "improved" the land they found. They felt it took both nature's "first creation" and their efforts at "second creation" to complete the work and make the land truly suitable for life. After years of wondering, here finally is an explanation of what early settlers were thinking when they did things that now seem extremely ecologically destructive.

The book calls out four assumptions of second creation: i) grid surveys were a good way to apportion and settle the fairly uniform land ii) free markets allowed individuals to do whatever made most sense without regard to legislative edicts and local monopolies iii) resources --especially land-- were abundant so that population growth didn't have to worry about the downward resource spiral suggested by Malthus and iv) the universe supported changes at no cost rather than levying an entropic tax on every effort at long-term progress. All four were critical to underpinning our foundation story; all four were eventually thrown in the dustbin of history. Those neat squares are a hallmark of flying over the western U.S., but they condemned neighbors to live a half mile apart rather than in towns, and they dismally failed to promote individual ownership of lands that needed to be irrigated. I'll let the book fill out the details of the remaining three assumptions.

I'd wondered casually about but never seriously questioned the emphasis on water power rather than steam power in the early U.S. I learned our thinkers were glad surfeit of rivers and lack of coal leaned this way, because water power was thought to be more natural and hence to have beneficial sociological effects! Many early investors honestly thought that so long as mills used water power rather than steam power, they couldn't create a downtrodden working class like British mills. I also learned that mills were common in the Southern states too; although they arrived there a generation later, they weren't completely absent as I had thought.

Even though I live near historic Lowell Massachusetts ("spindle city") and thought I was quite familiar with the history of mills in the U.S., the book taught me some new local details. It alerted me to the former existence of the Middlesex Canal that extended almost 30 miles from the Merrimack River to Boston, and to the original construction of the Pawtucket Canal not for the mills but for transportation. Once I knew to look for the Middlesex Canal, I found maps, an interpretive museum which I visited, and even remaining bits and pieces explaining odd landscape features that had never made sense before.

I was also alerted to the fact that the old gristmill I'm familiar with near the Wayside Inn in Sudbury Massachusetts was in fact a reconstruction early in the last century.

And the many references led me to 'The Education of Henry Adams', an autobiography that although clearly a century old speaks to our time. My old public library, which has a vault in the basement and some materials that go back to the sixteen hundreds, still had a copy on its open shelves. When checking it out I commented to the librarian I was glad the library had so many "old" books, and she in turn commented that she was glad to see at least one patron using the older book room.

As time passed and as settlement proceeded westward, the necessary technologies expanded from things each individual could manipulate to things that could only be done by huge collectives. One man could make a clearing with an axe. But only the federal government could construct Boulder Dam. The individualism that's so tightly woven into the U.S. personamade less and less sense as settlement proceeded into the high plains and the arid regions. Even in the already settled east, large civil engineering works such as water pumping stations were once highly visible public technology. ... Read more

Product Description

In the years following the Revolutionary War, the young American nation was in a state of chaos. Citizens pleaded with government leaders to reorganize local infrastructures and heighten regulations, but economic turmoil, Native American warfare, and political unrest persisted. By 1784, one group of North Carolina frontiersmen could no longer stand the unresponsiveness of state leaders to their growing demands. This ambitious coalition of Tennessee Valley citizens declared their region independent from North Carolina, forming the state of Franklin. The Lost State of Franklin: America's First Secession chronicles the history of this ill-fated movement from its origins in the early settlement of East Tennessee to its eventual violent demise. Author Kevin T. Barksdale investigates how this lost state failed so ruinously, examining its history and tracing the development of its modern mythology. The Franklin independence movement emerged from the shared desires of a powerful group of landed elite, yeoman farmers, and country merchants. Over the course of four years they managed to develop a functioning state government, court system, and backcountry bureaucracy. Cloaking their motives in the rhetoric of the American Revolution, the Franklinites aimed to defend their land claims, expand their economy, and eradicate the area's Native American population. They sought admission into the union as America's fourteenth state, but their secession never garnered support from outside the Tennessee Valley. Confronted by Native American resistance and the opposition of the North Carolina government, the state of Franklin incited a firestorm of partisan and Indian violence. Despite a brief diplomatic flirtation with the nation of Spain during the state's final days, the state was never able to recover from the warfare, and Franklin collapsed in 1788. East Tennesseans now regard the lots state of Franklin as a symbol of rugged individualism and regional exceptionalism, but outside the region the movement has been largely forgotten. The Lost State of Franklin presents the complete history of this defiant secession and examines the formation of its romanticized local legacy. In reevaluating this complex political movement, Barksdale sheds light on a remarkable Appalachian insurrection and reminds readers of the extraordinary, fragile nature of America's young independence.

Customer Reviews (1)

A capable study
This has been a long-neglected part of NC history, so it is good to see a serious study of this seperatist movement.Research looks good, and the last chapter about how Franklin was used to justify other seperatist movements (incl 1861) is very good.Unfort., the author tried to make the story overly dramatic by hinting throughout the text that the end of the movement would be a big, bloody battle. It wasn't.Some details are off too: there were no minie balls in 1786; Gen. Rutherford's first name was Griffith, not Henry; etc.These don't detract from what I woul dcall a "capable" study, but other parts of the book are overly confusing. ... Read more

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The state of Yucatan is commonly considered to have been a hotbed of radical feminism during the Mexican Revolution. Challenging this romanticized view, Stephanie Smith examines the revolutionary reforms designed to break women's ties to tradition and religion, as well as the ways in which women shaped these developments.

Smith analyzes the various regulations introduced by Yucatan's two revolution-era governors, Salvador Alvarado and Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Like many revolutionary leaders throughout Mexico, the Yucatan policy makers professed allegiance to women's rights and socialist principles. Yet they, too, passed laws and condoned legal practices that excluded women from equal participation and reinforced their inferior status.

Using court cases brought by ordinary women, including those of Mayan descent, Smith demonstrates the importance of women's agency during the Mexican Revolution. But, she says, despite the intervention of women at many levels of Yucatecan society, the rigid definition of women's social roles as strictly that of wives and mothers within the Mexican nation guaranteed that long-term, substantial gains remained out of reach for most women for years to come. ... Read more

Product Description
In whatever way the present civil war in America shall result, it
is certain that the future condition of the colored race in this
country will be the question over-mastering all others for many
years to come. It has already pushed itself into the foremost place.
However it may be true, that slavery and the negro were not the
proximate causes of this war, no one who gives any candid thought
to the matter can fail to recognize the fact, that back of all,
this stands as the grand first occasion of it. Had there been no
slavery, there would have been no war. ... Read more

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Born in Connecticut, Lemuel Haynes was first an indentured servant, then a soldier in the Continental Army, and, in 1785, an ordained congregational minister. Haynes's writings constitute the fullest record of a black man's religion, social thought, and opposition to slavery in the late-18th and early-19th century. Drawing on both published and rare unpublished sourcess, John Saillant here offers the first comprehensive study of Haynes and his thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Haynes WAS NOT Black
**The rating is related, not to Haynes work, but to the publisher and the FALSE Premise that Mr. Haynes was a "BLACK" puritan/republican**

The fact that people are insulting reality by claiming that Mr. Haynes was black is quite horrid. There are plenty of Black leaders from which one can get inspiration, without INVENTING one.

Here is the wikipedia of Haynes:

[...]

As you can EASILY observe, Mr. Haynes WAS NOT Black. He was not even MIXED. He is a classic White European man. The Wiki article above is quite honest about it too. Even though it initially describes him as an "African American", his supposed African heritage is described historically as "some African extraction". This is the same as calling a White Dutch in South Africa an "African-American". What's next, that Alexander Hamilton was an "Afro Caribbean" man because he was born in the islands?

Just look at Mr. Haynes and stop insulting Black Americans by turning a White man Black to somehow erase the fact that the only Blacks allowed at the time around the elite were slaves.

If Mr. Lemuel Haynes was alive today, would he be "profiled"? Would the police describe him as a "Black Male" on their radios? At the time, everybody knew that this man was indeed WHITE. He used the term African in the context of the continent itself, not in the context of race (as it happens today, since there are different races and cultures in Africa).

STOP THE INSANITY!! LOOK AT HIS PICTURE!

Let's stop insulting REAL BLACKS in this country, by creating these faux Africans for them to praise. Do we really need to justify White guilt to such a point as to INVENT Blacks who support our causes? Political Correctness has to END or we are all screwed.

Uncovering Buried Treasure
John Salliant's research has uncovered the riches of a buried historical treasure. Lemuel Haynes' life and thought has often been neglected, but no longer. "Black Puritan" is a catching and appropriate title. Rev. Haynes was a theologian, writer, pastor, and educator. He pastored a bi-cultural congregation long before "multi-culturalism" was a buzz word. And, he defended the historic Christian faith against the rising New England tide of universalism. His self-written epitaph is worth the price of the book alone, as it summarizes well his commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.

Prophetic
This book is not just for students of black history. Introduced to Lemuel Haynes by its pages, I left this book very inspired. In fact, I wanted more, and I have since sought out works by Rev. Haynes. His vision was prophetic. Rev. Haynes was a Republican in the classic sense, desiring equality for all in a democratic society. As a Calvinist, he trusted a Sovereign God's words of liberation and justice would come to fruition. Reading Haynes' words, I was struck by how far ahead of his time he was. Later anti-slavery advocates often still looked upon minorities as inferior. Many advocated freed slaves be returned to Africa. Haynes advocated equality in a manner powerfully foreshadowing a dream that would not be repeated until voiced by Martin Luther King. This book is a fascinating read for those interested in democracy, religion, philosophy, race issues, or history.

Rare Jewel Rediscovered
Without a doubt, John Saillant has done a service to American History in general and Christian History in particular.By rediscovering the depth and insight of Lemuel Haynes and dispensing this information with clarity and scholarship, Saillant has given to us one of our lost and brilliant intellectual and theological heroes.Lemuel Haynes was a post-revolutionary African-American pastor in New England. The sharpness of his mind was only matched by his zeal for the truth and its application to America at her most needful time.His words to his generation were prophetic, and through the thorough and scholarly work of Saillant, we can hear the voice of Rev. Haynes and see just how true his thought and heart were to the God he loved and the people he served.If you want to see how the passionate, theological Puritan mind addressed the issue of slavery and the true American responsibility, take up and read Black Puritan, Black Republican.You will not be disappointed - challenged and enlightened - but not disappointed. ... Read more