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The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Paperback)

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4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The leaders of the American Revolution, writes the distinguished historian Bernard Bailyn, were radicals. But their concern was not to correct inequalities of class or income, not to remake the social order, but to "purify a corrupt constitution and fight off the apparent growth of prerogative power." They wished, in other words, to mend a broken system and improve upon it. In doing so they drew on many traditions of political and social thought, ranging from English conservative philosophers to exponents of the continental Enlightenment, from backward-looking interpretations of ancient Roman civilization to forward-looking views of a new American people. Bailyn carefully examines these sources of sometimes conflicting ideas and considers how the framers of the Constitution resolved them in their inventive doctrine of federalism.

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With this reading of the American Revolutionary Experience, Mr. Bailyn has substantially and profoundly altered the nature and direction of the inquiry on the American Revolution. In the process he has also erected a new framework for interpreting the entire first half-century of American national history...A landmark in American historiography. (American Quarterly 20090228)

Tightly written and politically sophisticated...In the field of American Revolutionary Studies Bailyn's book must henceforth occupy a position of first rank. (Saturday Review )

The most brilliant study of the meaning of the Revolution to appear in a generation. (History )

One cannot claim to understand the Revolution without having read this book. (New York Times Book Review )

A distinguished achievement. Mr. Bailyn writes with the authority and integrity that derive from a thorough mastery of the material. His meticulous scholarship is matched with perceptive analysis. (New York Review of Books )

In every area of Bernard Bailyn's research--whether Virginia society of the 17th century or the schools of early America--he transformed what historians had hitherto thought about the subject. In The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, the most famous of his works, Bailyn uncovered a set of ideas among the Revolutionary generation that most historians had scarcely known existed. These radical ideas about power and liberty, and deeply rooted fears of conspiracy, had propelled Americans in the 1760s and 1770s into the Revolution, Bailyn said. His book, which won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes in 1968, influenced an entire generation of historians. For many, it remains the most persuasive interpretation of the Revolution.
--Gordon S. Wood (Wall Street Journal )
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Enlarged Edition edition (March 1, 1992)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0674443020
  • ISBN-13: 978-0674443020
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,361 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #54 in  Books > History > Historical Study > Revolutionary

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106 of 106 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fundamental, January 4, 2002
By R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
When published in the 1960s, this book had a revolutionary effect on our understanding of the American Revolution. Its impact is undiminished by the passage of the last 40 years. Bailyn's scholarship and exposition remains as exciting as it must have been at the time of initial publication. Bailyn attempted to take a fresh look at the thinking of the individuals who made the Revolution. His work was based on an extensive survey and analysis of the large number of political pamphlets published in the years leading up to the revolution. His work benefited as well greatly from a number of other significant works of scholarship, such as Caroline Robbins' book on the Commonwealth tradition in 18th century thought. More than anything else, Bailyn succeeded in determining what key terms like 'power', 'liberty', and republicanism meant to the Revolutionary generations. In doing so, he was able to strip away anachronistic accretions from these terms and ideas and recover the actual thinking of the Revolutionaries and their opponents.

Bailyn's achievement is manifold. He was able to show that dominant intellectual influence on the Revolutionaries was a compound of classical models, Common Law legal tradition, Enlightenment ideology, covenant theology, and a strong tradition of British intellectual and political dissent that had its roots in the Commonwealth period of the 17th century. The latter tradition was especially important and acted as the binding matrix for other traditions and interpretative lens through which other received ideas were focused. Bailyn shows how these ideas were articulated in the specifically American context and how they led inevitably to confrontation with the expanding imperial authority of Britain. This conflict led to new expansions of the basic ideology, some of which would represent completely novel ideas. The traditional ideas of representation and consent, constitutional basis of society, and sovereignty were overthrown and replaced to a very large extent by the concepts we still uphold.

The development of these new ideas and the necessity to give them practical scope would lead to what Bailyn artfully termed "The Contagion of Liberty"; the expansion of concepts of rights and freedom well beyond the original categories of thought received by the Revolutionary generations. These would include attacks on slavery, the questioning of establishment of religion, speculation about democracy as a legitimate and potentially stable form of government, and an increasing emphasis on social equality generated from the realization of political equality. As Bailyn remarks, the thinking and writing on these topics provides the bridge between the world of the 18th century intellectuals and what would become the world of Madison and de Toqueville.

Bailyn's analysis and scholarship are superb. The organization and quality of writing in this book are outstanding. Just as important, Bailyn is very good at supporting his analysis with well chosen excerpts from contemporary political pamphlets. His judicious choice of quotations not only serves to support his conclusions but gives a fine idea of the words and thoughts of the Revolutionaries and their opponents.

This is a fundamental book for understanding the American past.

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54 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Lost Soul of America, June 6, 2003
This is the critically acclaimed book by Bernard Bailyn that stands in contradistinction to Charles Baird's Economic Interpretation. With unusual courage, Bailyn attempts to understand the founders as they understood themselves. In the preface, Bailyn recalls the "intense excitement" and "sense of discovery" he felt at Harvard Universtiy when he studied the ideological themes of revolutionary America. This excitement and sense of discovery is passed along to the reader.

This is a very scholarly work. The extensive footnotes are fabulous. I especially enjoyed the chapter called "Power and Liberty". Bailyn develops the pre-revolutionary idea that the ultimate explanation of every political controversy is the disposition of power. Power is defined as "dominion" or the human control of human life. With dozens of fascinating examples, Bailyn illustrates why power is essential to the maintenance of liberty, but dangerous and in need of restraint lest it extend itself beyond legitimate boundaries.

I found it refreshing to read a book about America's founding that didn't condescend or politicize. It wasn't until I read this book that I fully appreciated how impoverished my public school education was on the topic. You wont be disappointed.

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46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, December 12, 1999
By William J. Murphy (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This work is a classic. Bailyn brilliantly traces the ideological background of the revolutionaries. He shows how they were steeped in the radical libertarian and republican opposition literature of 17th and 18th century England. He overturms traditional interpretations that stress Locke as the primary influence by demonstrating the vital importance of such men as Algernon Sidney, John Milton, John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon, Lord Bolingbroke, and a host of others. Despite this, Bailyn does not deny the centrality of Locken natural rights philosophy, as many more recent scholars have. He sees the basic philosophy behind the revolution as one which views power as the eternal enemy of liberty. Power must be watched and restrained tightly, otherwise it will exceed its bounds and bring about the end of liberty and the initiation of slavery. He also delves into various issues relating to this philosophy that surrounded the break from Great Britain as well, including the unsettling consequences of their revolutionary agenda(e.g. new views of slavery). In the revised edition of the work, Bailyn extends his analysis to the new U.S. Constitution. Contrary to many other scholars, Bailyn maintains that the new Constitution did not represent a repudiation of the Revolution, but rather, its fulfillment. I myself am still a bit skeptical concerning this point, but his scholarship is sound, and his reasoning is suggestive and challenging. Above all, I would have to say that this work is an absolute *must* for any individual who is interested in early-American history or political philosophy. Moreover, it is also very instructive for liberty loving Americans, as it reveals the nature of the truly radical libertarian foundations of our nation.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Read for Revolutionary War Students
Bailyn traces the influences of Revolutionary political thought in this book. Covering the many facets of political philosophy that shaped the Revolution, Bailyn successfully... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Philip Draper

5.0 out of 5 stars Prize-winning, influential book on the American Revolution
Many other reviewers have already done a good job summarizing this very influential book which won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize in 1968 -- a rare... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Roger Berlind

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential
There are books which describe the "hows" and "whys" of history. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is a definitive exemplar of the latter. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Valentin

4.0 out of 5 stars The Revolution River was Fed by Various Streams
It is quite common to be confronted with a partisan understanding of America's founding. To the secularists, all the founding fathers were deists at best. Read more
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5.0 out of 5 stars The great conspiracy
No phase of American history has attracted such talented and distinguished historians and produced such quality scholarship as the revolutionary period. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Timothy J. Graczewski

5.0 out of 5 stars The Story of America Begins With Bernard Bailyn
Bernard Bailyn's seminal Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece is the starting point to understanding the central theme of American political thought -- the struggle of Liberty... Read more
Published 22 months ago by anarchteacher

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant - for its time
Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is a centerpiece in much, if not all, of contemporary historians' viewpoints and methodologies for understanding... Read more
Published on September 22, 2007 by Shawn S. Sullivan

5.0 out of 5 stars Still a standard!
Research on a previous project provided Bernard Bailyn an intellectual treasure trove of over 400 pamphlets, written between 1763 and 1776, from which he crafted his Bancroft and... Read more
Published on May 30, 2007 by Ronald A. Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars A spark in the study of the Revolution
This is a book that all students of the American Revolution should be forced to read. Without understanding Bailyn's argument, that the "conspiracy against liberty" was the main... Read more
Published on March 21, 2006 by Jameson P. Ryley

4.0 out of 5 stars The Radical Whig Fountain of Libertarian Rhetoric
While the 17th century witnessed the failure of the libertarian Levellor revolution, the 18th century can be said to embody its partial victory in the form of the American... Read more
Published on January 1, 2006 by Robert A. Williams

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