Customer Reviews

American Aurora: The Supressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Report It

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Can historical source material make for an exciting and engaging read? This book answers that question in the extreme affirmative. It contains documents mainly from the 18th century, but it reads like a political thriller. It also provides valuable peeks into the formation of the United States as we know it today. Magma hot controversy surrounded that formation. The press on all sides fervently spewed accusations that seem nearly heretical even today. Did John Adams want to be king? Was George Washington a bumbling and incompetent general? Did the French win the revolution for us, thanks to the diplomatic powers of Benjamin Franklin? Was Thomas Jefferson an atheistical French sympathizer? In light of these claims, Who is really the "father of our country?" Many unconventional opinions see light in this book. Some cherished political figures get shredded to bits, sometimes by their own words and sometimes by the words of others. In the end, no one is safe from abuse. Not even Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Shocking claims await on almost every page.

The drama begins in the city of Philadelphia in 1798. At this time it served as the capital for the very young United States (the government moved to Washington in 1800). John Adams holds the presidency. George Washington still has a year to live. Benjamin Franklin has been dead for eight years. His grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache runs a newspaper called the Aurora General Advertiser (or just "The Aurora"). For reporting on certain congressmen's less than professional behavior (spitting, insults, etc), congress bars the paper from the floor of both houses. The Aurora gets shoved into the balconies of congress, far above the whispers of congressman that Bache so often reported on without approval from the House Speaker. Congress marks the Aurora as a troublemaker. This begins the first section of the book, where the Aurora accuses president Adams of wanting to be king of the United States. More than mere conjecture or metaphor spurned this accusation. Adams presented his idea of "titles" to Congress on May 9, 1789. He suggested a verbose title for the president: "His Highness, the President of the United States of America and Protector of the Rights of the Same." Along with this, he proposed that the president and all senators should hold their offices for life. These ideas deeply disturbed Bache, and the exposure of Adams' goals became a predominant goal of his paper. In addition, Bache accused the Adams administration of purposefully alienating France. The Aurora and other news sources of 1789 reported on the terrifying prospect of a French invasion of the United States. It never happened, and Bache yelled foul from his printing press. The more he yelled the more the Adams administration responded. The Sedition Act, supposedly created to silence the Aurora, came before Congress and passed in 1789. On top of that the the Alien Bill also passed, which enabled the president to deport any illegal alien without trial. Bache argued the unconstitutionality of both Acts. The inevitable arrest came soon after. Bache posted bail for trial for indictment under the Sedition Act. The yellow fever epidemic of the same year altered the proceedings. Other arrests and trials of newspaper editors continued. Many were convicted, spent time in prison, and paid heavy fines.

Part Two of the book goes back in time to before the American Revolution. This section will raise the most eyebrows. It begins with an accusation that George Washington started the French Indian War of 1756. The section goes on to argue that Washington bungled the Revolutionary war so badly that Benjamin Franklin had to go to France and beg for help. Surprising letters from Washington's Generals and other government officials dot the entire section. Other revelations include Alexander Hamilton's avowal that monarchy best suits the new constitution's checks and balances, Adams' ideas behind a two house legislature, Benjamin Franklin's support of a unicameral legislature, and the alleged flouting of the French Treaty of 1778 under the Washington administration. Washington in particular fares badly in this section.

The Third and final section returns to 1798. William Duane now heads up the Aurora (you can guess what happened). He continues the fight against the Adams administration's policies, particularly in the critical election year of 1800. The government arrests Duane under the Sedition Act, and even the United States Senate arrests Duane for "breach of privilege". Duane spends much of this section in hiding. This section also sheds some light on the origins of the Second Amendment concerning the subject of standing armies. Much, much more gets coverage in this section. Far too much to summarize here, but the election of 1800 (Adams vs. Jefferson) receives more than ample coverage.

Throughout, the reader gets more perspectives than just the Aurora's. The Federalists (Adams' party) also get plenty of space. Numerous passages from the Gazette of the United States and Porcupine's Gazette (both Federalist papers of Philadelphia) provide vitriolic responses to Bache's and Duane's Democratic-Republican claims. Candor was not something practiced by the press of the time. Articles sometimes resulted in personal assaults on editors with opposing papers cheering on the abusers. Rough times indeed.

Though the book provides many perspectives, the book mainly argues that Bache and Duane's Aurora saved the United States from monarchy (even Thomas Jefferson made this claim in 1823), and that freedom of the press provided the means. The book takes a decidedly anti-Federalist stance.

Engaging and powerful, this book will provide at least another perspective on the founding of the United States and its major personalities. It accomplishes this mostly through excerpts from newspapers, The Annals of Congress, and personal letters of the time (the book contains over 2000 direct citations). At times it feels close to time travel. A long and arduous but ultimately extremely rewarding read.

This book was controversial in the historical community, in large part because of the author's decision to adopt the voice of William Duane as the book's "narrator." While Rosenfeld's interventions in Duane's voice are distracting and grating, ultimately they comprise only a tiny fraction of the book's ample content. The rest of the book offers a fascinanting exegesis into the character and climate of political and public life in the early republic. Critics who take aim at Rosenfeld's lack of objectivity (as a consequence of his adoption of Duane's voice) only end up revealing their own biases. Rosenfeld clearly has a stake in the story he wants to tell, but any scholar who invests time in a major research endeavor shares that position. Rosenfeld merely lays his cards on the table, without maintaining a pretense of objectivity. His argument is all the more compelling in that its constructed on a foundation almost exclusively built out of primary source materials. After reading this book, you will not necessarily be compelled that Washington was a murderer (to cite one minor example), but you will no longer be able to imagine that the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries were eras of enlightened, rational thinking.

This book is an engaging, illuminating read and the treasure trove of primary materials provided by the author offers readers the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about specific incidents and debates. At the same time, it leaves little room to hold onto myths about the nature of political and print culture in the so-called Age of Enlightenment.

Reading this masterpiece is what I imagine it must have been like to discover Tutankahmen's tomb. Every chapter is a new discovery; every letter and newspaper article and pamphlet extract is a jewel in an incredible mosaic of early American history that you have never seen before. With an original and effective use of primary sources Rosenfeld has created a stunning portrait of the struggle to create and sustain our republic. I found the book immensely readable and, especially in the depiction of the halting and, at times, incompetent prosecution of the war with Great Britain, almost impossible to put down. My highest recommendation.

It's hard to imagine how a twenty-fifth 5-star review can do any more to convince anyone to read this book... But I will try!

I HATED history in school, and rarely read history as an adult. Nevertheless, I was engrossed by this book and could hardly put it down, notwithstanding 900+ pages! It has revived my interest in (accurate) history, and might do the same for you.

If you like your history shined-up with the polyurethane glow of hero-sweat, don't go near this book; unless, that is, you would like to actually learn something and enjoy the learning along the way. In the end you might discover a hero or two, but mostly you will come away quite convinced that the "popular" history of our own nation is seemingly as intent as that of the old USSR on covering-up and inverting the facts. Imagine that!

Say "Alien and Sedition Act" to most people who have not completely blocked their recall of high school US history and you will see the whites of their eyes - rolling up into a coma! This could be the single most boring and meaningless datum we were required to remember, no?

But now, on reading "American Aurora", I find that the "act" was slammed through Congress as a way of shipping as many as possible of the troublesome new Irish immigrants off-shore as possible - before the election of 1800 where they were expected to cause electoral trouble for the Federalists. Imagine that !

For that matter, say "Federalist" to most folks and you can clear the room... a few desperate souls mumbling about "Marbury and Madison". But, WHEN you read this book (it cannot be an "if"), you'll realize how fundamental the rift was and how vicious the political battle was that constructed the foundations of our political structure.. So many of our history teachers wished that we would understand the "fundamental" part - but that we would somehow accept that anything so important was settled by a bunch of powdered wigs (or was it whigs?) in grand public session - that it was all neatly sewn up, somehow, after Cornwallis's band played "The World Turned Upside Down." The true story reads more like Capone's Chicago and the "settling" of the issue was a messy, decade-long business.

In style the book frightened me. Really! It is peppered with original documents of the era - letters and the like. That sort of "authenticity" often seems to just introduce confufing fyntax and fpelling that drives me away. Well, consider a quote from a letter from Thomas Paine to Washington. "You slept away your time in the field till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have little share in the glory of the final event. It is time, sir, to speak the undisguised language of historical truth.". Sheesh! We realize that even Paine, usually cast as a firebrand only in the `liberty or death' category, was outspoken in other ways, which have not echoed down the halls of official history. Imagine that!

Ultimately the mixture of original source documents and well-crafted storytelling is a knock-your-socks-off combination. This is absolutely compelling history and a great read to boot.

This book lies by omission from start to finish. Selective quotation is used to calumny Washington and Adams, to exaggerate divisions among the Founding Fathers, and to sheer away the context of every quote given. For example: you would not know from the book that Washington's victories at Trenton and Princeton sent the British retreating to New York; or that James Madison co-authored the Federalist papers; that John Adams during his Presidency was trying to keep the US away from war with France; that the Jay Treaty finally secured the US its inland empire, and was a triumph of diplomacy given our weak position vis-a-vis Great Britain; or that the Republican France Bache et al. admired was a murderously revolutionary state with rhetoric (and some action) of universal export of its Revolution. I distrusted every ellipsis in these primary documents, and learned from this book how expertly you can distort history with selective quotation. The format was tedious too, but the book's main sin is to teach incorrect history. Not revisionist history - wrong history. The text-book version of the American Revolution may miss some nuance, and may hagiographize some, but it's far closer to the truth than this farrago. If you want to read a good history of the Revolution, try Benson Bobrick's _Angel in the Whirlwind._

It pains me to give American Aurora a relatively negative review, as the book was entertaining and well-prepared. I must do so, however, because the book offers only part of the story. James Thomas Callendar is one of the most amusing characters of early American history -- the forefather of folks like Walter Winchell and Matt Drudge, the first American "scandalmonger," as William Safire calls him. But he was motivated by money and personal pique, embracing and denouncing Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in turn to sell papers and whenever he felt one had slighted his ambitions. American Aurora focuses only on the period of the Alien and Sedition Acts and Callendar's campaign against Adams. The book makes Callendar out to be a John Peter Zenger-caliber hero of free expression, ignoring the fact that Callendar once praised Adams, and would later tarnish Jefferson -- Callendar's hero in American Aurora -- and breaking the story of Sally Hemings. This is a fun read. Too bad it's not the whole truth.

You will notice that even the reviewers that hate this book are passionate in their hatred. Which is more than you can say for those damn text books that went something like Our FOUNDING FATHERS blah blah, Founding fathers blah blah, etc... that's because this book fleshes out these historical figures, makes you like them and hate them.

Part One sets the stage with the initial articles of The Aurora claiming that Adams is a monarchist who only wants to be king. Published by William Duane and Benny Bache (grandson of Benjamin Franklin) the Aurora pulls no punches and neither do its detractors. The historical background is told from the perspective of Duane which is irritating at first because you feel like you are being confronted rather than informed. The articles seem just a little bit like a radical college student rambling on about how bad everything is (Gore Vidal's history books are like this as well).

Part Two goes back to before the Revolutionary War to trace the personal and professional conflict between John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Adams wants a government like England's while Franklin sees a one house parliament as ideal (much like Revolutionary France). Not only are they split in the professional sense but they don't like each other either. Washington is seen as a spoiled elitist who spends all his time whining about the army when its Franklin that wins the war by involving France.

Part Three comes up to the 1800s in which Adams' Sedition Law is in effect and one by one papers that are seen as disloyal face jail sentences and high fines. Most are shut down. Aurora stays in business even though the publisher has to go into hiding. There are street brawls and open hostilities as every article of the bill of rights is challenged by the Adams administration. The problems don't end until Jefferson's election.

Important things in this book -- many of the Founding Fathers hated each other. Washington was a popular president more due to reputation than anything presidential. Adams could be compared to George Bush in many ways (vice president for mediocre popular president, mediocre president, loses election to charismatic whoremonger, son goes into politics), History is a LOT more interesting than the high school textbook would have you believe.

Love this book or hate it, you won't come away neutral.

Though some complain about the format of this book, I had no problem with it. Yes, the book would have been easier to read if the author had digested all of the material for us and and spit it back out with his analysis.

But how often do readers of mainstream works of history have the opportunity to read so much original text? American Aurora offers us page after page of direct transcriptions of period newspapers, journals, and letters. This is not a weakness. It is the book's strength.

First of all, I find it fascinating to read the exact words of people who died hundreds of years ago. Instead of having some "scholar" tell us that the nation was falling apart under the Adams administration or that Washington was a general afraid to fight, he allows the people of the time to tell us all about it.

I have another theory as to why Rosenfeld populated this book with so many original texts: the points he communicates are so shocking--that Adams wanted to set himself up as a king, that Washington was a simpleton and a terrible general, etc.--that the conservatives would all howl "revisionist history" from the rooftops. Rosenfeld puts a stop to this by mostly leaving out his own words and letting us hear from the people who lived through the revolution and first turbulent years of our democracy.

Interestingly, I had never heard of American Aurora before coming upon it in a half-price book store. Leafing through it and realizing what a find it was, I snatched it up without hesitation. What I had found was history as I have rarely seen it: in the form of letters and newspaper clippings dating from the early years of the American Revolution to the election of 1800. The collective mass of them all exceeds 800 pages, but I was never sorrier to be done with a large book as I was with this one.

Rosenfeld uses source documents to highlight the philosphical underpinnings of the American Revolution from the conservative men of property who sought to overthow the British for the sake of personal aggrandizement to the radical philosophers seeking a true government of the people. The conflicts between these two groups in US history has been so underplayed and muted as to be tragic. For--and it took this book to make me realize it--that conflict was the precursor to the ongoing battle of plebianism and doctrinaire authoritarianism, between the right to expression and the need for state secrets, between states rights advocates and national cohesion, between agrarian interests and the trappings of the industrial caste, and between the working class and the landed socialites implied in America's modern day political conflicts. So much of what went on between those groups in our early history directly affects us today. In fact the conflicts between the leaders who fought for our independence and penned our Constitution is in fact embedded in that founding document.

For the average reader, the contrasts of behavior and argument between our nations founders will come as a shock to say the least. What has traditionally been presented to us as a homogenous movement of the American people for their independence has been shattered for me in the pages of American Aurora. What is left is a study in contrasts and a much clearer and realistic understanding of the personalities and policies that shaped American history, and for that matter, the entire world's history thereafter.

This is history at its finest. Rosenfeld, instead of relying on a string of historians for his narrative, lets Jefferson, Adams, Duane, Bache, Franklin, Hamilton, Washington, etc. speak for themselves through their letters and articles. The result is a far, far more candid and more lucid understanding of the American Revolution and the battles of the early republic than I have read.

Every American should read American Aurora or something like it.

By using inflamatory rhetoric, deception, and yes, ommission, the author makes the reader emotionally sympathetic to the Republican cause. In doing so, one not only learns about a vital chapter in American history, but becomes involved in it. No, the book is by no means balanced. To have written it that way would have been a gross injustice to the passionate fury contained within the subject matter. Instead, Rosenfeld wisely chose to convey information to his reader the way Bache and Duane communicated to theirs two centuries ago. As long as the reader is aware that this is by no means the only interpretration of these events, the book is a valuable exercise. Still, some of the quotations could have been reduced. Washington's constant ravings about the lack of supplies, etc. were excessive. Instead, other facts were left by the wayside, i.e. why was the capital moved to New York, and then back to Philadelphia?