I thoroughly enjoyed this book
The author John Ferling is a professor emeritus of history at the State University of West Georgia. He’s written several other books, all about persons involved in the creation and development of the American republic, including biographies of John Adams and George Washington and the first three presidents in the American Revolution.
Published in 2004, one interesting note was that the author used “blogger” in reference to pamphleteers in early America. A short preface, fourteen short chapters, 215 pages makes this a very readable book. I finished it on my vacation this year and still had time to start my Andrew Jackson biography. The book also has a list of abbreviations, end notes and an index.
The author’s statement in the preface is the same reason I was drawn to this book,
But one thing above all pulled me toward writing this book. The prevailing sense for some time has been that politics in the eighteenth century was substantively different than modern politics. Supposedly, public officials were different as well, tending to be more detached and disinterested, more above the fray. That was not what I found…. (page xviii)
Indeed, the partisanship I found was quite surprising. Bitter invective, innuendo, outright falsehoods, propagated in the hope of gaining election. Again from the preface,
Politicians then, as now, were driven by personal ambition. They represented interest groups. They used the same tactics as today, sometimes taking the high road, but often traveling the low road, which led them to ridicule and even smear their foes, to search for scandal in the behavior of their adversaries, and to play on raw emotions.
I wonder what Burkee and Walz would say to that.
One other thing I want to touch on in this post is the author’s sense of the passion of the time.
Indeed, the 1790s was one of America’s most passionate decades. It was kindred in warmth and fervor, and especially in rage, to the 1770s, 1850s, 1930s, and 1960s, for activists of all persuasions understood that colossal choices in foreign relations were to be made that would dramatically shape the nation, if in fact the infant republic survived those choices.
More later because I think this book is instructive for today’s politics. In fact I would add this decade to the ones the author enumerated above. Both sides in today’s debates believe the stakes are high.
Filed under: Books, Elections, History, Politics, presidential
