Customer Reviews

The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

American history never made sense to me and now I know why. As voltaire said, "History is the lie commonly agreed upon" and that's what was taught to me in school and is now taught to my son. Francis Jennings tries to change all that with a "revisionist history" asking the questions that when posed by students in school are ignored by teachers. How did material progress evolve in a country that was already populated by over 25 million inhabitants? Who owned america? How did we shift from a policy of cooperation with the indians (a la Thanksgiving) to one of aggression. How much of our revolution was political and how much economic? How did relations between colonialists and Great Britain deteriorate so quickly after so many years of harmony? This book is an overview of much that Jennings has written in earlier books with some further thoughts and ideas. What is most enjoyable is that he is willing to speculate, to question accepted fact and wisdom, to go out on a limb, to offer an opinion on various events, characters and situations. For the first time american history became real to me: the people human, the events complex and contradictory, the struggle for independence understandable. In the end a history not much different from what has been happening recently in Washington. The prose can be turgid; parts of it are somewhat academic but Jennings moves the story along and makes for me (a non-historian) very telling points. He left this reader with much to think about. I have since gone out and bought his other books and will be reading those in 2001. A good balancing piece after this book is A Struggle For Power by Theodore Draper.

Both of us loved this book and we bought a copy for a friend who also thought it was great. I couldn't believe the 3-star rating it got, but saw one reviewer found it "turgid." We found it an easy read, but we are both college graduates. More important the information and analysis was exciting and outstanding, full of connections and insights that we were never taught in school. Jennings made so much sense of the reality and dynamics of the American Revolution by including the usually-omitted "Indians." Thank you, Mr. Jennings.

I loved this book! It is the most realistic, no-nonsence presentation of the American colonial story as I have ever see, in or out of school. Jennings tells it like it was, sans the "romance" and "heroics" often portrayed in school texts and by those historians who want to cast a rosy glow on the American story; he portrays the struggle for empire (not just "freedom"), depicting not just the challenges with which American settlers confronted England, but he tells of the struggles between the varied inhabitants of the early colonies, from the landed genty to slaves, from the native Indians to the land-seeking westward travelers. There are stories both amazing and cruel in this book, and Jennings pulls no punches in calling a thief a thief (even if one did become President) and a tyrant a tyrant (even though one became Secretary of State). Jennings' report is told in just plain "straight-up" language, without the usual laudatory embellishments. In the end, I was still proud to be an American, seeing how this nation was put together by real human beings... some heros, some not.

The only fault I found with this book was the manner in which some historic episodes and events got repeated from one chapter to the next. True, Jennings may have been casting a new light, fresh discussion, on a previously-discussed event, but this repetition sometimes seem to interfer with the logical progression of the historic chronology Nevertheless, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what reeeally happened in the formation of this nation.

This book was Jennings' last, and he used it for a final rant against America and Americans. I have read his trilogy on the American Indian (The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Institute of Early American History & Culture)Empire Of FortuneThe Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies and found it quite informative. He always had an agenda in writing his books - in these it was to provide a needed corrective to the established dogma on the relations between Americans and Indians during the Colonial period.

His agenda in this book is to correct the received interpretation of the American struggle for independence by trying to show that the ideals of the Revolution were little more than sophisticated propaganda disguising a struggle for raw power over the resources of a new continent. Of course he is partially correct, just as Howard Zinn is partially correct in his better known hatchet job on America A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present The problem with this book and books like it is that they themselves are a sophisticated form of propaganda known as "special pleading". A good defense attorney does this in court - present all the good things about your client and minimize the bad things. If you are a prosecutor you do the opposite, and Jennings (and those like him, Zinn, Chomsky, et.al.) takes the prosecutorial role with ease. He doesn't make the slightest pretense of objectivity or fairness, and is highly selective in picking his facts. This selective presentation of the facts, the definition of special pleading Logic: An Introduction, is itself a very powerful and effective form of lying.

This alone would not make this a bad book - some of the most interesting books in world literature are polemics. But Jennings assumed the role of historian and teacher, and with that role comes an obligation toward the truth, which Jennings failed to maintain, which is why I have titled this piece as I did. I have not had the fortitude to track down EVERY lie in this book, but I will give one detailed example of Jennings' devious and dishonest tactics.

On page 249 in a footnote he calls Francis Parkman "that prince of liars", and claims to have spent "thirty years" "sweating" over Parkman's volumes. Francis Parkman : France and England in North America : Vol. 1: Pioneers of France in the New World, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, The Old Regime in Canada (Library of America)Francis Parkman : France and England in North America : Vol. 2: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, A Half-Century of Conflict, Montcalm and Wolfe (Library of America) Yet on page 61 he says of the partnership negotiated by British Brigadier John Forbes with the Delaware Indians which resulted in the French withdrawing their forces from and burning Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburg, PA) "The odd-couple partnership cannot be found in the texts." - meaning, presumably, history books, including Parkman's. As it happens I too recently "sweated" over Parkman, and found in pages 1294-99 of his second volume a detailed history of the Moravian Mission to the Delawares, conducted with great courage and ultimate success by Christian Frederic Post, an unsung hero of American history, at the direction of Brigadier Forbes. If Jennings indeed "sweated" over Parkman's histories it was highly selective sweating, because he missed it. Parkman's histories are in fact filled with numerous well-documented and fascinating historical episodes, and should be read by every American citizen.

A less serious criticism of Jennings is that his lack of professional training as a historian shows in his inability to tell a coherent story. He doesn't tell us WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, which is the first obligation of a historian.The Idea of History: With Lectures 1926-1928 He is focused on his polemic, of course, which gets in his way, but he is also just plain digressive and rambling, so interspersing his facts with snide remarks that he loses the thread of his narrative. The result is that this book is a poor source of historical fact, even if you factor out the polemics.

In closing, those who believe that America is the source of all evil in the world will enjoy this book. For everyone else reading it will be a tedious and irritating waste of time.

epops

This book is trash. It contains a number of historical errors such as when Jennings states that Gov. Samuel Adams dispatched troops to suppress Daniel Shay's rebellion in Western Massachusetts following the American Revolution. Bowdoin, not Adams, was Governor at the time and he acted to protect our Government.

He states that Samuel Adams and John Hancock were cowards for not being on the firing line at Lexington. He conveniently overlooks the fact that one of the missions of the British troops was to arrest Adams and Hancock so that they could be sent to England for trial and probable hanging. The Patriots had Adams and Hancock under guard to advoid their capture. It would have been a great loss to the American cause has the British been successful. I assume that Jennings would criticize Churchill and Roosevelt for not participating in the intial landings on Normandy Beach during WWII.

He characterizes George Washington as an embezzler and John Adams as hollow hero. Our Nation would not exist today had it not been for their efforts, along with many others. They put their lives, fortunes and future on the line to build our country and certainly we all in debt to those individuals who managed to the compromises necessary to bring the widely diverse interests of the several states to focus on a common goal.

Jennings write in his book that he was a one time a member of a political organization whose goal was to overthrow our government. This book perhaps was written in frustration over the failure of that organization to accomplish its aims.

I tried reading this book but found it so turgid and poorly written that I put it down in frustration. It reads like a translation from another language by an academic bureacrat. The theme is interesting, the execution poor. Cannot recommend.