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Thaddeus Russell

A Renegade History of the United States Hardcover – September 28, 2010

by Thaddeus Russell (Author)

4.6 537 ratings

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In this groundbreaking book, noted historian Thaddeus Russell tells a new and surprising story about the origins of American freedom. Rather than crediting the standard textbook icons, Russell demonstrates that it was those on the fringes of society whose subversive lifestyles helped legitimize the taboo and made America the land of the free.

In vivid portraits of renegades and their “respectable” adversaries, Russell shows that the nation’s history has been driven by clashes between those interested in preserving social order and those more interested in pursuing their own desires—insiders versus outsiders, good citizens versus bad. The more these accidental revolutionaries existed, resisted, and persevered, the more receptive society became to change.

Russell brilliantly and vibrantly argues that it was history’s iconoclasts who established many of our most cherished liberties. Russell finds these pioneers of personal freedom in the places that usually go unexamined—saloons and speakeasies, brothels and gambling halls, and even behind the Iron Curtain. He introduces a fascinating array of antiheroes: drunken workers who created the weekend; prostitutes who set the precedent for women’s liberation, including “Diamond Jessie” Hayman, a madam who owned her own land, used her own guns, provided her employees with clothes on the cutting-edge of fashion, and gave food and shelter to the thousands left homeless by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake; there are also the criminals who pioneered racial integration, unassimilated immigrants who gave us birth control, and brazen homosexuals who broke open America’s sexual culture.

Among Russell’s most controversial points is his argument that the enemies of the renegade freedoms we now hold dear are the very heroes of our history books— he not only takes on traditional idols like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, but he also shows that some of the most famous and revered abolitionists, progressive activists, and leaders of the feminist, civil rights, and gay rights movements worked to suppress the vibrant energies of working-class women, immigrants, African Americans, and the drag queens who founded Gay Liberation.

This is not history that can be found in textbooks— it is a highly original and provocative portrayal of the American past as it has never been written before.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Free Press
Publication date

September 28, 2010
Dimensions

6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

141657106X
ISBN-13

978-1416571063
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This ultrarevisionist work is provocative, often interesting, and often preposterous. It appears to be a case of bottom-up history gone wild. The trend to view history from the standpoint of mass society is well established. Russell, a historian and journalist, has taken this approach much further. He asserts that the driving force behind many historical developments in history was provided by so-called marginalized groups outside the bounds of “respectable” society. So Russell provides a rapid run through some episodes and social movements in U.S. history, beginning with the meeting of the Second Continental Congress. His champions of liberty are not “respectable” men like Adams, Jefferson, and their ilk. Instead, he finds the real thirst for freedom among the drunkards, prostitutes, and slaves who mix socially and have “fun” in Philadelphia taverns. And so on through the abolitionist, feminist, and civil-rights struggles. Russell is hardly the first historian to notice the influence of the bottom of the social strata on culture, but his constant idealization of the lives of these “free” and “fun-loving” groups means readers should take everything with a heavy dose of skepticism. --Jay Freeman

Review

"Raucous, profane, and thrillingly original, Thaddeus Russell's A Renegade History of the United States turns the myths of the 'American character' on their heads with a rare mix of wit, scholarship, and storytelling flair." - Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good for You and The Invention of Air

“Thaddeus Russell’s A Renegade History of The United States is a work of history like no other—a bold, controversial, original view of American history that will amuse, inspire, outrage, and most of all instruct readers. Russell strips away conventional wisdom and explodes many myths. In the process, he sheds new light on ideas, institutions, and people.”
- Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History, Columbia University, and author of The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century and American History: A Survey

“Thaddeus Russell is a trouble-maker for sure. Whether you call his book courageous or outrageous, his helter-skelter tour through the American past will make you gasp and make you question—as he does—the writing of ‘history as usual.’”
- Nancy Cott, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard University, and author of Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation and The Grounding of Modern Feminism

“Thaddeus Russell has broken free of the ideological prisons of Left and Right to give us a real, flesh-and-blood history of America, filled with untold stories and unlikely heroes. No waving incense before the sacred personages of Washington, D.C. here. This wonderful book follows the best American traditions of iconoclasm and—what is the same thing—truth-telling.”
- Thomas E. Woods, Jr., author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History

“Howard Zinn wrote the ‘People's History’ of the United States. But Thaddeus Russell has written the history of the American People Whom Historians Would Rather Forget: the whores, delinquents, roustabouts—the so-called bums and immoral minority who did more for our civil rights and personal freedoms than anyone could count—until now. There is no understanding of American feminism, sexual liberation, civil rights, or dancing in the streets without this careful analysis that Russell has put before us.”
-Susie Bright, syndicated columnist, author of The Sexual State of the Union, and series editor, Best American Erotica

“A Renegade History of the United States takes us on a tour of backstreet America, introducing us to the rebels and prostitutes, the hipsters and hippies. The book tells good stories, all in the cause of illuminating larger historical struggles between social control and freedom, repression and letting go. Author Thaddeus Russell gives us a new pantheon of American heroes, and argues that those who expanded the realm of desire—for sex, for drugs, for illicit experiences—were the very ones who created our liberties. This is a controversial book, but certainly not a dull one.”
-Elliott Gorn, Professor of American Civilization and History, Brown University, and author of Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One

"This lively, contrarian work [is]... A sharp, lucid, entertaining view of the “bad” American past." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

This is a fun read that makes a serious point. Even drunkards, whores, black pleasure-seekers, gangsters, and drag queens have contributed to American culture, and sometimes in surprising ways. --W. J. Rorabaugh, professor of history, University of Washington and author of The Alcoholic Republic

"It's always fascinating spending time with a devil's advocate, and Russell is one of the best. You'll shout at this book endlessly, but you won't be able to put it down, for it's chock full of startling, upsetting, and entertaining anecdotes" --The Scotsman

"[A] rollicking and sure-to-be-controversial history of our great nation..." --Metro-Boston

A Reason Best Book of 2010

"[A] fully mesmerizing account of why America is so totally awesome..." --Reason

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; First Edition (September 28, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 141657106X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416571063
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #729,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #436 in Historiography (Books)
- #24,278 in United States History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 537 ratings

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Thaddeus Russell

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Thaddeus Russell teaches history and philosophy at Willamette University and is the founder of Renegade University (www.thaddeusrussell.com). He has taught at Columbia University, Barnard College, Eugene Lang College, the New School for Social Research, and Occidental College. Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Russell graduated from Antioch College and received a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. His work has appeared in Newsweek, The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, Reason, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and Salon, and his scholarly articles have been published in American Quarterly and The Columbia History of Post-World War II America. He lives in Los Angeles and Salem, Oregon.

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S. Gustafson

The founders of our actual freedom

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2010

Verified Purchase

Since I was small, I've always regarded hippies, along with civil rights and anti-war protesters, as the real founders of freedom in the United States. Most of the good things in our culture, from rock and R&B music to sexual freedom to marijuana, seemed to come from folks such as these, rather than from the peruqued heads of the Revolutionary War. This book points out that this view of things has deeper roots than the 1960s.

That said, many passages are likely to make you uncomfortable. Not with the tales of factory workers pushing back against industrial discipline, of whores and gay pirates: they're still safe to cheer for.

But the book's treatment of issues involving African-Americans and slavery may well cause some discomfort. For I'm still enough of a product of a Puritan culture that frequent examination of conscience is an indelible part of my background; and what is white guilt but the fruit of examination of conscience brought to racial issues?

Now, the tale the book tells is convincing, and likely true. The author tells us that many former slaves found that the movement from being valuable livestock to hired hands was no improvement. As livestock, they knew they would be fed and taken care of. Giving this up for the "liberty" of being able to switch employers and move on was a bargain many would not have chosen. As slaves, being property, their sexual relationships were unregistered, and could be changed as was convenient. Nobody expected different. "Liberty" brought with it the tyranny of nineteenth century marriage law.

The author argues that blackface minstrelsy, which we assume was pure stereotype, in fact was popular because it portrayed a people relatively free from work ethic, sexual repression, and able to engage in public merriment without fear of shame. Some White people in the nineteenth century liked it for some of the same reasons that some White people in the twenty-first century like gangsta rap. This rouses a perhaps unwholesome curiosity about what the performances were actually like. An entire genre of Americana has vanished leaving only the slightest traces; it made previous generations that uncomfortable.

The author, despite his disclaimer that the "renegades" are not really heroes, seems to take a pleasantly subversive delight in making these arguments. He likes to make his readers squirm a little. You might have preferred to have these themes broached first in a stuffily scholarly and less readable text than this.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Gerald

A Wonderful Book That Gave Me a True Appreciation for the "Underdogs" in American History. Must Read for History Buffs

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 1, 2014

Verified Purchase

I heard this author on a late night radio interview and found his ideas intriguing. I'm a student of history and had never heard a viewpoint like his expressed. His main thesis is that, while the country was founded by wealthy, educated men, who gave us a system that resulted in the standard of living we have today; there was another group of unheralded "heroes" who are responsible for shaping our society into the type of place that makes it worth living. Most of the founding fathers were pretty much a bunch of uptight, puritanistic prigs. Many of them were like today's social conservatives - hard working puritan ethic, supporting of capitalism, but don't like it if you're having the type of fun of which they don't approve. They thought the best thing a person could do was work all day, six days a week and, spend all day Sunday at church, keep alcohol to a minimum, and don't get too wild. And that went double for women. The author shows us how the "Renegades" in our society - freed slaves, poor Irish, Italian, and the lower socio-economic people - along with the "bad women" in society - fought for and obtained the rights we all enjoy today that make life worth living. The personal freedom to do what we wish, whether if be partying hearty or women having the right to own property and vote. And time enough away from work to enjoy those things. Along the way, he gives wonderful tidbits of history that I had never read - such as the amount of alcohol consumed by people in colonial times. And the total fraternization of working class whites, free blacks and often slaves in the taverns and bordellos of the time. I'm from Flint Michigan and grew up with a lot of black people. I always enjoyed and somewhat envied the ways my black friends would allow themselves to have a good time and not worry about some of the dumb things I was raised to worry about. This book gave me a great appreciation for all the great things that black culture has given to our society but not in the way most people think. When I was a kid "soul" was a word all my black friends used - "Soul brother", "soul music", etc. But this book allowed me to see that black culture (and other none "WASPs)" really did give this country it's true soul of freedom to enjoy life and live it the way we want to live. Thank you Mr. Russell.

11 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Frederic Gable

Provides history that is largely ignored and shunned.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

I used to think there wasn't anything else to discover in history, and this book changes that notion. There is a saying that history is written by the winners. It is high time that history is shown from every angle, and Renegades of History sheds light on a great deal of that history.

A tough read as this book will challenge many notions and preconceptions you may have about history.

T. K.

Good contrarian history to counterbalance mainstream history and myths.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

Very interesting book. I don't see everything the way he does in history, but overall, his history helped me understand the ordinary bias in racism and confirmed my belief that even well-meaning people often do want freedom for others (especially in our day government/corporate education and media). Recommend for people who are left-leaning or libertarian.

F. B. Fisher

Three Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on May 14, 2015

Verified Purchase

Not an easy read

J. Connelly

Alternative history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 20, 2012

Verified Purchase

A great alternative view of how history was created and the people who were involved in the major events in the USA. There are a lot of throw away snippets I was not aware of such as the mafia connections to the stonewall bar and resistance riot.

A lot of the material regarding the American revolution are well known but the slave issue such as the belief that life for some was better in the slave farms rather than a failed southern reconstruction and the immediate sentimental views of the south after the civil war are really interesting.

2 people found this helpful

W. DeFelice

This is revolutionary

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 24, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book explains a lot about America that will displease Americans, but enlightened others. It's basic premise is that it is its very misfits and outlaws who provided America not with its freedoms, perhaps, but with its ideas of freedoms. Who wore lipstick at first? It was the prostitutes. They also pioneered the idea that women could be independent.
Especially entertaining, too, is the author's depiction of the way that such law-abiding members of American society were once considered its dregs: the Irish, the Italians, the Jews.
The subtext is that the USA is run by a bunch of fuddyduddies, who have fought since the country's inception any real freedoms that the people have wanted.

2 people found this helpful

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