Customer Reviews

Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I don't disagree with the praise of various reviews, professional and otherwise, but this is one of the more poorly edited books I've come across in the past few years and that's why I give it only 3 stars. I'm not talking about typos or transposed words, though there are enough of those instances.

No, there's a larger problem here: repetition. Two pages after Barone tells us that the fortress of Phillipsburg "spans the Rhine," he repeats the same phrase. Historians he's quoted from are re-identified. Two or three times we hear that Holland was a whirlwind of printing presses and pamphlets which were a chief propaganda tool. The ways in which James tried to pack Parliament are explained more than once in too-similar language, and I could list other examples of unnecessary repetition in a book that's under 250 pages of primary text. They're all annoying.

Almost as annoying is the lack of maps, the quality of what's there, and their placement. Why is the map charting the progress of William's army in England tucked in after an appendix and almost 100 pages after it's necessary? It's not even mentioned in the Table of Contents. Why is there no full map of England with its various counties, since they're so frequently brought up? Not even an Anglophile like myself knows where they all are. Why is the map of The United Provinces so sketchy, so that major towns mentioned in the text don't appear on it? Why is there no map of Europe in that period, so that when mention is made of various principalities and duchies you can see where they are? Had I not just read Jessica Mitford's Frederick of Prussia, I wouldn't know where many of the German states referred to in Barone's text are located. These are not trivial omissions in a book about the movement of armies and the threats to sundry territories.

I very much expected to enjoy this book, interested as I am in English history. However, having only reached page 102, I can't help but feel that I'm reading an unedited first draft rather than a finished product. Disappointingly, the book appears to be full of typos, contradictions of fact, and bewildering and clumsy constructions.

To give a few examples:

* On page 6, the author is discussing the populations of various areas at the time of the Glorious Revolution. He writes: "Britain's North American colonies had about 250,000." But then, at the end of the same long and confusing paragraph, he writes, "...Spain's Latin American colonies had approximately 10 million, while the English North American colonies had only 280,000." I kept looking for the signal phrase that would indicate that the numbers 250,000 and 280,000 are meant to refer to different things, but I can't find it.

* On page 24, the author writes that "John Evelyn heard the sermon at the king's chapel...." I don't believe that Evelyn had previously been introduced in the book, and there is no explanation of who he is. He is mentioned at least one other time, again with no clue as to who he is, on page 27. But then, on page 49, the author introduces a quotation from Evelyn's diary with this phrase: "As John Evelyn, a Kent landowner who seems to have known everyone in London, noted in his diary...." Wouldn't it be better to give us that short explanation of who Evelyn was the first time he's mentioned?

* On page 97, the author introduces "one of the most remarkable characters of the period, Robert Spencer, the Earl of Sutherland." However, later in the paragraph, he refers to him not as Sutherland, but as Sunderland. He refers to him once again as Spencer, and then calls him Sunderland from there forward. I had to keep going back to make sure we were still talking about the same guy.

* On page 100, the author writes: "Sarah encouraged Anne to restrict pressure from James and his queen to convert to Catholicism." Shouldn't that be "resist pressure"?

It may be that in one or more of these examples, I've missed some key phrase that would make all clear. But I don't think so. Rather, it appears that the book is just poorly edited. And this apparent sloppiness has made me a bit distrustful of the information I'm getting in the book. The story is interesting, but I hope they put out an edited version sometime soon.

It's a common misconception that the last time the British Isles were successfully invaded was in 1066 when William the Conqueror defeated Harold at Hastings. But many forget that William of Orange, invaded and occupied England, with the complicity of many nobles, claiming the throne for himself in 1688; in fact, Dutch soldiers controlled London's streets for ten years. For someone not well-versed in this episode and period of history, like me, I found this to be a great overview.

The book's strength is its analysis of the geopolitical context that surrounded William's decision to invade and James II's action and inaction. Besides the well known religious issue, a Catholic king vs. a protestant nobility and population, other pressures included William being fourth in line to the throne, with his wife being the second, and his desire to get England onto his side against France. At the same time France's military actions in central Europe and even Ottoman actions in Eastern Europe created the conditions that allowed William to act when he did.

The book's weakness is in its analysis of what it purports to do; argue that the "revolution" inspired America's founding fathers. After nine chapters of traditional narrative history Barone leaves this argument to the very end and offers little support. First his argument is based on an assumption that Catholicism was bad for England and Protestantism was good. This assumption is critical because many of his arguments in favor of the "revolution" rely on what happened in England after the invasion vs. what MIGHT have occurred had James remained king. The problem with comparing the facts of reality to the supposition of what never occurred, but might have, is that it can never be proven or tested. His argument merely amounts to the need to believe that bad things would have happened.

At the same time, despite claiming that American's founding fathers were inspired by this revolution, he offers very little evidence to support that claim.

All in all I really enjoyed the book and recommend it for those who want to know about the Glorious Revolution; but don't use it to argue that our founding fathers took inspiration from it.

Very diappointing rehash of the Glorious Revolution using derivitive sources and quotes. The author does not deliver on his promise to explain his thesis that the Glorious Revolution was the inspriation of our founding fathers and the direct effect of the revolution in North America. He throws out unsupported conclusions in the last chapter, speculating on what the world would look like today but for the GR. The book had great potential, but the author did not have the "right stuff" or scolarship to pull it off.

Michael Barone is best known in political circles for the biennial Almanac of American Politics, which contains vital information about individual leaders and areas of the country. He is a high-ranking journalist who shows up on the Sunday morning talk shows from time to time to explain What It All Means. He knows Washington, its folkways and, most importantly, his political history.

In OUR FIRST REVOLUTION, Barone transfers his insight into a new environment --- the political maelstrom of 17th-century Britain. And "maelstrom" is close to the right word for the level of upheaval that precedes his story. Within the lifetime of its central figure, King James II, the realm had known a fierce Civil War, the execution of a sitting King, the rule of an unelected "Lord Protector" and the reinstitution of the monarchy. As you can see, this is not the sort of political environment where it matters much who is on the Agriculture Committee.

OUR FIRST REVOLUTION begins by looking backward, with a quick, almost breathless review of both European and English history to date, most of which centers on the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation. Years of warfare had led to the principle that the religion of the king determined the religion of the people --- a problem in England that had shuttled between Protestant and Catholic monarchs. After the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, the issue of the king's faith seemed settled --- until the heir apparent, James, Duke of York, announced that he was converting to Catholicism. This conversion was a real and apparent threat to English Protestants, who feared yet another spate of unrest and rebellion.

Barone does a masterful job of explicating the political and extra-political measures that were brought to bear to keep James off the throne --- everything from rumor-mongering to preemptive legislation. Keeping track of the intricate plotting, things like Ecclesiastical Commissions and the Exclusion Crisis are right in Barone's wheelhouse. He stays on the trail when the political crisis turns into a military crisis, as James's son-in-law, William of Orange, leads an army from The Netherlands to challenge for the throne.

Where OUR FIRST REVOLUTION falls a bit short is in its inability to illuminate the characters of the central actors; there is just not enough explanation given to exactly why James II converted to Catholicism, or what sort of personality he had, or why he fled the throne as he did. Worse, the other principal player --- his successor, William of Orange --- comes across as a big stick-in-the-mud. The one really interesting character in the book is John Churchill, who is an ancestor to Winston Churchill, and Barone frequently and gratefully cites the great man's biography of his distinguished forbearer.

But OUR FIRST REVOLUTION is largely a work of political history, not personal history, and its great plan is to show how the events of the Glorious Revolution impacted the revolutionary thinking of America's founders. It is a consequential story, and we are lucky to have Michael Barone to tell it.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds

Michael Barone is a very smart man, and his name as author convinced me to read this book. Great story, but poorly told. I was not surprised by the relatively dry writing style, knowing Barone's writing on domestic politics here in the states. He knows *everything* about national elections and the electorate. Thus, it was no surprise he revealed much about English voters and details of the attempts to pack Parliament. And I truly appreciated the content. I like when historians justify their assertions and provide details. Still, at times, it was like chewing cardboard. Moreover, I had to chew it multiple times, when Barone repeated himself so much.

It's almost as though Barone wrote the book and turned it over to an inexperienced editor, without having reread it himself. Put the green manuscript down for a couple of weeks, then come back to it an read it as though you were not the author. After a few gut spasms, you will know what to cut. Damned shame.

I agree with the leading "negative" review on the matters of editing. I was particularly displeased with the hidden maps-- not found until I finished the book entirely. Man, that annoyed me. I really like to bookmark maps while I read, and refer to them repeatedly as the story progresses. Especially when discussing military actions, always an essential part of English history.

Nevertheless, I gave this three stars, purely from the viewpoint of essential content. While this was no Alison Weir "fun" read, Barone provides a chunk of knowledge badly needed and poorly understood by most Americans.

So, pick up a copy and read it. Just find the maps first, and bookmark them. And skim what seems repetitive-- it is a repeat and you really don't need it twice.

This work is about the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 that brought William and Mary to power in England and deposed James II. The author makes the case that this change in kingship and the "Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, and Settling the Succession of the Crown, December 16, 1689" was the impetus and blueprint for the American Revolution of 1775. This is good as far as it goes, but the situation was more complex than that.

The case can be made that the first revolution was the Puritan seizure of power through Parliament in 1642 that brought Cromwell to power and the beheading of James' father, Charles I. See Phillips, "The Cousins' Wars." Most specifically, 1688 was about deposing a Roman Catholic monarch in a Protestant country and replacing him with a Protestant. For the Roman Catholic point of view, see the two-star review by Richie which lauds Roman Catholicism as inclusive although one of the main reasons 1688 came about was Louis XIV's revocation of the Treaty of Nantes that allowed French Protestants to exist in France. Following that revocation, almost all Huguenots were murdered or driven out of France. Protestants in England feared the restoration of Catholic power in England through James and its possible/probable extirpation of Protestant churches and their adherents in England. At best, a civil war was looming if James was allowed to remain on the throne.

Where the author is particularly seminal is in his discussion of the aforementioned "Acts." Most specifically, the Acts included five of the ten amendments in the American Bill Of Rights: The 1st - the freedom of speech and the right to petition the government for redress; 2nd - the right to keep and bear arms (for Protestants only and FOR THEIR OWN DEFENSE); 3rd (obliquely) no standing army (in the US, no quartering of troops in private homes; 5th - trial by jury; 8th - excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted (compare that to the 8th amendment, it's almost word for word); plus other rights similar but worded differently to the American Bill of Rights.

To a very large degree the author is correct in his treatise that the laws established as a result of 1688 did provide the legal basis for many of the American colonists' later political thrusts. The Roman Catholic countries in Europe at the time had sunk into absolutism by monarchs supported and legitimatized by the Catholic Church, and for many American colonists, perhaps even moreso than Englishmen in England, the Catholic Church was seen as an oppressor denying individual liberty to the people. It would take France's revolution of 1789 and the resulting Terror to provide the counterpoint to absolutism and authortarianism and blast Europe from its political structures. Of course, the American Revolution had shown Europe that it was possible for a people to rise up and establish a democracy, but unfortunately the French had no cultural or political basis for democracy and rule by the people. The result we see even today in governance by authoritarian elites (the EU government) in Europe. Of all the world's countries, the only one regularly espousing inclusion of all religions, races, creeds and cultures is the US, and that is no accident. This works goes far in explaining why.

Highly recommended. The progress of politics and liberty in the American colonies was highly dependent on that in England, and this work is important in understanding how and why some concepts of the rights of the people that we cherish today came about.

As reader Chesapeake's review notes, Michael Barone's Our First Revolution is fundamentally flawed because Barone almost totally ignores the destructive anti-catholic laws that were enshrined by the "Glorious Revolution of 1688." While Barone correctly concludes that the revolution shifted the balance of power between King and Parliament and fostered development of such "liberties" as the right to bear arms, he is simply wrong in claiming (p. 234) that "the Revolutionary settlement was also a step forward for religious liberty." Rather, the 1688 Coup d'Etat was undertaken specifically to prop up the Established Anglican Church and to preserve the Test Act which limited public offices to Anglicans. The Anglican bishops simply could not live with James's April 1688 Declaration of Indulgence, which--while preserving state support for the Anglican Church--afforded liberty of conscience to all Englishmen. So the "Revolutionary Settlement" on Religion was to enshrine anti-Catholicism at the heart of the unwritten English Constitution by depriving all Catholics in the British Isles--even the King and his successors--of liberty of conscience. James's Declaration--not the Anglicans' liberty denying reaction--was the real step forward for religious liberty.

It is not surprising that the Anglicans refused to read that Declaration from the pulpits nor that they supported William's putsch. In the long term, the Anglican Church could not have maintained its privileged position if liberty of conscience were afforded all Englishmen. Truth to tell, their "brand" of Christianity had been rejected even by the nominal head of the Anglican Church, James II. To this day, no Catholic can become King of England for the simple reason that the Anglican Church realized that it would not be able to compete with the Catholic Church if free choice is given to the head of the Anglican Church.

Instead of recognizing through Twenty First Century eyes that the Revolution was simply the Anglicans' successful effort to deprive Catholics of any liberty of conscience, Barone has accepted uncritically the prevailing prejudices of Seventeenth Century England and justified anti-Catholic discrimination by portraying James II as a Tyrant and the Catholics as "inherently subversive" and untrustworthy (pp. 204-5). That, of course, has been the spin that the winners--the Anglicans and their Dissenting Protestant supporters--have used to justify their bigotry for the past 320 years. Unfortunately, Barone parrots the spin without any critical examination of the claims. Some of the claims clearly are makeweights. For example: at p. 97, Barone breathlessly records, as justification for the Revolution, that James II had remade the Militia of Ireland so that 40% of the officers and 2/3 of the men were Catholics. That was hardly an evil absolutist act on James II's part. Well over 2/3 of the population of Ireland was Catholic at the time. Would political pundit Barone call Harry Truman a tyrant for issuing his Executive Order integrating the US Army? Does Barone contend that segregationists would have been justified in a new civil war because of Truman's action? I should hope not.

In making his case that James was a tyrant because he "packed" his Parliaments, Barone also misstates History. Anyone familiar with the term "rotten boroughs" would know that Parliament was not much of a representative institution until well into the 19th Century. Yet Barone claims (p. 192) that King William III was deferential to his Parliament and that no English monarch after James ever packed a Parliament. To the contrary, in 1690, William dissolved the very Convention Parliament that had just appointed him "king" when it failed to give him the Act of Indemnity he was demanding and thereby forced the election of a more compliant Parliament. Likewise, after Princess Anne had succeeded William and had come to distrust John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, she asked Parliament to dismiss him from all his offices but was thwarted by an uncooperative House of Lords. So, in January 1712, she packed the House of Lords by ennobling twelve Tories. The twelve then joined the Tory Minority to form a new majority that did her bidding by dismissing Marlborough. Likewise, when George I succeeded Anne in 1714, the new election gave the Commons majority to the Whigs with whom George was most comfortable, so he got that Parliament to revoke the existing law mandating Parliamentary elections every three years and to replace it with a "Septennial Act" permitting itself and later Parliaments to remain in office for up to seven years.

Yet Barone's most culpable misstatements are his false suggestions (pp. 204-05) (a) that Catholics deserved the discriminatory treatment they received because of experiences like the Popish Plot of 1679; and (b) that the discrimination Catholics did suffer was not so bad anyway. The truth is different: the Popish Plot had been concocted almost out of whole cloth by anti-Catholic protestants, as Barone earlier had admitted (pp. 50, 55), so it hardly can justify the near total exclusion from civic life that English, Irish and Scottish Catholics suffered for the next 140+ years.

Likewise, Catholics were not as well off under William as they had been under Charles II and James II. First, both Charles and James had tried to ameliorate Catholics' plight under the then existing Penal Laws by passing Acts of Indulgence that tried to accord liberty of conscience to them as well as to Protestant dissenters. Those Acts of Indulgence could not withstand the Parliament's Protestant Furies of 1674, 1679 and 1688, but it was not for want of trying by the Stuart brothers. Indeed, James's final effort at giving Christians liberty of conscience in April 1688 led directly to William's Coup d'Etat a few months later. Second and more importantly, the lives of the bulk of Catholics in the British Isles--the Irish Catholics who represented about 20% of all British subjects and 80% of the Catholics--got immeasurably worse under William as the result of the 1695 Irish Penal Laws. Those new penal laws--approved by the very "King Billy" that Barone claims was "tolerant"--imported to Erin's fair isle the infamous long-standing English penal laws and deprived Catholics of any participation in the Irish Body Politic. The new laws even deprived Catholics of the right to own property above five pounds unless they bowed to the Kings' bishops and took Anglican communion.

William's toleration of new forms of Anglican intolerance was visited on English Catholics as well. In 1699 (when he was no longer at war with anyone), William and the Parliament passed the infamous "Act for further Preventing the Growth of Popery" which gave English "priest hunters" the even bigger incentive of a 100 pound bounty on the head of all Catholic priests found anywhere in the Kingdom. That same, very large amount was also offered to any informers who could root out Catholics who had the temerity to send a child to be educated in a Catholic land.

While Barone's appendix usefully gathers together some of the important documents of the Period, even there his omissions seem to be driven by his prejudices. Most importantly, it does not include the most important document to understanding the Revolution: James's April 1688 Declaration of Indulgence. That document really was 100 years ahead of its time. Its assurance of liberty of Conscience would have been the real harbinger of the religious liberty provisions of the US Constitution; the hate-filled actions of the successful protestant putschists, by contrast, were a throw back to the hateful anti-Catholic acts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was also called the "Bloodless Revolution" since it was more of a coup d'etat than a full-blown revolution. The big issues of the day that played in the background were Catholicism vs Protestantism and Monarchy vs the rights of Parliament. James II was the Catholic monarch of England. He was vilified by a mostly Protestant populace for not only suspending laws that barred Catholics from holding office, but, worse yet, joining an alliance with Catholic France against Protestant Netherlands. William of Orange, the Dutch stadtholder, was ideally suited to lead the coup against James II, not least of which being married to Mary Stuart, James II' daughter. And building an alliance with England would give William and the Dutch a formidable bulwark against the much larger France.

When it was discovered that James II and the queen were having a child - a Catholic successor to the throne - William decided to make his move. It wasn't exactly a momentous decision, since he was invited to invade by John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough and ancestor of Winston Churchill. Assissted by members of Parliament, both Whig and Tory, the revolution occurred not with a bang, but with an administrative stroke of the pen. James II, with no significant alliances, decided to flee to France with queen and child.

Since it was Parliament that was installing William, it placed many restrictions on him, with which he was forced to agree. The so-called "Bill of Rights" provided the seedlings not only of the English constitution, but the American constitution as well; hence the "our" of "Our First Revolution." According to Michael Barone, these rights had "reverberations" throughout the world, most famously the American Bill of Rights about a century later.

The Bill of Rights enumerated James II's violations of human rights. He had tried to subvert the Protestant religion and the rights of Parliament. He illegally executed laws, levied taxes, and maintained a standing army without the approval of Parliament. With William's ascent to the throne modern Britsh parliamentary democracy was born. From this point forward a monarch would no longer have absolute power; this was indeed revolutionary.

Barone sees this merger of Dutch commerical power with English constitutionalism as the founding moment of the British Empire. New ways of funding national debt and the establishment of the Bank of England - following the Dutch example - enabled England to pursue empire on a scale not seen before. London soon replaced Amsterdam as the world's financial and trading capital. And following the English example, Alexander Hamilton set American finance on solid footing by establishing the first national bank, the consequences of which we are living to this day.

Barone also makes the argument that the anti-hegemonic foreign policy pursued by William - in his case against Catholic France - was later adopted by his successors, and much later by the United States in its fight against Nazism and Communism. Barone also suggests that today's struggle against Islamic terrorism is in the same league, but that claim is tenuous at best.

This is a good book that recounts the events that established individual rights and the accountability of government in both Britain and America. This was the beginning of the era known as classical liberalism to which both American liberals and conservatives attribute their roots. (See also Paul Starr'sFreedom's Power: The True Force of Liberalism.) Inspite of some omissions, I would recommend reading it.

Anyone who enjoyed "1776" will benefit greatly from reading about the English revolution that preceded ours. What Michael Barone succeeds in doing is making a variety of previously unknown people and events both interesting and revelant. After reading "Hard America, Soft America" with great enjoyment, I am considering reading Mr. Barone's other books; and, I am curious about what he will write about next. He has at least one excited customer already committed to buying whatever that is!