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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Statehood As Originally Understood, August 20, 2008
This review is from: Virginia's American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840 (Paperback)
In his preface Kevin Gutzman writes, "...I wanted to consider Virginia from the state level, because my understanding of the politics (broadly understood) of the period was that state identity dominated people's consciousness in a way barely conceivable now. ...I saw that the chief theme of the [Virginia Ratification Convention] was not the kind of America ratification would make but what effect ratification would have on Virginia."
So begins an indispensible study of a particular cultural and political setting in the early days of the United States, and how the formation of this nation was understood by one state -- Virginia. From the time that England's James I promised to honor Virginia's freedom and the English rights of its citizens through the Revolutionary War and the first decades of the United States, Virginians understood themselves to be an autonomous people who had signed on to the Constitution with the primacy of their state's uniqueness and identity intact. After finishing this book one can better appreciate why, threescore and ten years later, Robert E. Lee would turn down the highest command in the U.S. Army rather than turn his sword upon his home country, Virginia.
Gutzman provides an overview of Virginia's uniquely hierarchical culture -- chiefly descendants of the Caroline kings and their servants -- and introduces the key players who shaped Virginia's understanding of and response to the Ratification Convention: George Bland, Thomson Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry, among many others. Whether Federalist or Anti-Federalist, all parties worked to ensure Virginia's distinct identity within a non-binding contract of separate states.
Once the nationalist Federalists began to assert unstated powers, figures like the brilliant pamphleteer John Taylor of Caroline arose with prophetic vengeance, seeking to rally public and leadership sentiment back to first principles. Yet, the aristocratic culture to which Taylor and many prominent Virginians belonged unwittingly alienated many of the frontiersman who had pushed beyond the Blue Ridge escarpment, setting the stage for a future rupture in the Old Dominion.
Gutzman masterfully traces these developments and the external forces which by 1840 had undermined Virginia's primacy and example of local autonomy. Daresay most Americans have a limited or skewed understanding of the Revolution -- one that is increasingly monistic and nationalistic. Virginia's American Revolution underscores that, from the beginning, America consisted of disparate political cultures with very different visions of what the agency of Federal government meant. The Virginian vision has been obscured if not lost, and many serious social and economic ramifications of that outcome continue to manifest themselves today.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Old Dominion, A Constitutional-Political History of Virginia post-1776, September 5, 2009
This review is from: Virginia's American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840 (Paperback)
~Virginia's American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840~ is a well written, erudite constitutional history of my beloved Commonwealth of Virginia from the time of the colonial-revolutionary days onward to the antebellum, post-Jacksonian years preceding the Civil War. Why Virginia? Virginia deserves attention because it was at the epicenter of the political and social life of the early United States. Prior to independence from Britain, Virginia was a country onto itself with land claims that stretched to the Pacific. After the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 to draft a new Constitution, Americans from neighboring states eyed the proceedings of the Virginia convention of 1788 watchfully as if looking in which direction to proceed with Virginia's prompting. As Patrick Henry proclaimed, "The example of Virginia is a mighty thing." The deference afforded to Virginia by her sister states in the early years of the American Republic is apparent by the number of presidents and statesman she bequeathed to the United States. Virginia's political sages included such luminaries as George Washington, Richard Bland, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Wilson Nicholas Cary and Littleton Waller Tazewell. Virginia defined her political culture with an insistence on localism and States' Rights.
Hence, author Kevin Gutzman offered a convincing and historically accurate challenge to the ascendant nationalist ideology that swept the West following Springtime Revolutions in 1848 and the American Civil War of 1861-65. Biased nationalist historiography seeks to reread events surrounding the American Revolution through the lens of nineteenth-century nationalist ideology--and the late American Civil War. As historian Clyde Wilson surmised of his work, Gutzman "calls attention to `the old reality of American political life that the state was the primary unit of political allegiance, the chief locus of political identity, and the level at which most significant political questions were decided to the early republic.'" The occasion for the writing of the book is insightful, as Gutzman approached his historical inquiry initially in search of John Calhoun's basis for interposition and nullification. Then his inquiry turned into a full-fledged probe of the broader American history of States' Rights. His mentor Peter Onuf pointed Gutzman in the direction of the Principles of 1798--which arose following the passage of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Naturally, the Old Dominion took center stage.
Gutzman offers a fresh historiographical perspective, though not novel, as it was once ascendant in the early years of the American Republic. Having fought and won their independence from one of the mightiest empires on the earth, Virginians were not about to consign themselves once more to a remote centralized government. George Washington observed, "independent sovereignty is so ardently contended for... the local views of each State... will not yield to a more enlarged scale of politicks." This book is a break from the ideological fodder, which seeks to interpret American and Virginian history through the ideological lens of us hapless moderns. The task of the historian is to understand those who lived the past on their terms. In this regard, Gutzman's book is a welcomed break from his contemporaries who foist ideological agendas onto their historical interpretations.
Kevin Gutzman boasts some impressive credentials with a Juris Doctorate from the Univ. of Texas School of Law and a Ph.D. in History from the Univ. of Virginia.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating immersion into VA's revolutionary political scene!, November 7, 2011
This review is from: Virginia's American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840 (Paperback)
I, like many people, was abruptly woken up from my blissfully ignorant slumber to the political/economic turmoil our country has experienced these last few years. Finding myself insatiably hungry to learn about our history and the foundation this nation was built on I spend alota time studying the history of the American revolution and the early republic from an overall/federal level perspective. Being a citizen of Virginia (and being particularly fond of our flag) I began to wonder a bit more about her part in the Revolution during those times. Thanks to Tom Woods I discovered Kevin Gutzman's epic. Upon opening the first page you will find yourself immersed in the vibrant political scene in central Virginia -the epicenter of the newly forming republic- gaining a sense of the sentiments of the times, the political climate and culture- witnessing the great debates, political schisms and party feuds, all playing out before your eyes in incredible detail, satisfying the most erudite scholar while simultaneously entertaining the laymen historian with it's story-like read. Anyone interested in studying Virginia's (and thereby America's) history must not miss Kevin's incredible book.
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