The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America

Professor Morgan's book is a delight- a collection of essays from the NY Review of Books spanning over 40 years. He shares his lucid, powerful insights into the early years of our history with sly implications for the present. Mr. Morgan instructs that the Founding Fathers meant what they said; their words were not a conscious or unconscious cover for economic or psychological motives. He is as brilliant now as he was years ago in Yale's classrooms.

Edmund S. Morgan has written many books on American History, including the recent _Benjamin Franklin_. He has also read a lot of books. As an expert in the history of the colonial and Revolutionary periods, he has for decades reviewed books on these eras for the _New York Review of Books_, and in the illuminating _The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America_ (Norton) are reprinted his essays on recent works of American history. They are "... a statement of what I have thought about early Americans during nearly seventy years in their company." In his introduction, he states that part of his philosophy of reading and writing history is "... taking what people have said at face value unless I find compelling reasons to discount it." The early Americans, for instance, said they were conducting a revolution because of taxation without representation. Other historians, viewing the events from different political stances, might have tried to demonstrate that this was a class struggle, or that the Americans had been eager to impose their own taxes rather than to do away with taxes from abroad. No, the American Revolution turned out, in Morgan's view, to be "... really what the Americans said it was." Readers of these essays will find them clear, free of cant, and remarkably charitable. It is important to note that many of the books covered are not about "new" books, but new editions of historical papers, like Federalist and Antifederalist writings or the correspondence of Jefferson and Madison. Morgan in reviews of these books gives his views directly on the historical matters contained, rather than on the opinion of any particular author. Morgan's view of taking things as they seem does not prevent him from reporting surprises. In chapters on sexual relations in early America, he finds that carrying laws from the old country forbidding sex outside of marriage simply did not work. In the Carolinas, couples lived, as diarist William Byrd observed, "in comfortable fornication." In New England, sermons were delivered about the orgasmic delights of conversion and sexual comparisons were made between physical love and the love of Christ. Marriage was seen as a sexual state, and women were entitled to "that pang of pleasure" which comes from coitus. In New Haven, the strictest of Puritan colonies, a wife could divorce a husband who could produce no such pangs. Some towns had a bridal pregnancy rate of 40%. Although New England is often Morgan's focus, there are many essays on the South. He maintains that New Englanders left many records of what they thought and did, while Southerners left relatively little of such documentation. Several of the chapters here are particularly about slavery. The title of the book comes from an essay on Washington, who generally lost battles, had no known part in drafting provisions at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 over which he presided, and who is credited with some important state paper

Ordinarily, books that are collections of articles that appeared elsewhere often do not live up to their promise. Have no fear--that most certainly is not the case here. This is so for several reasons. The first is that Morgan is Morgan--probably the dean of American colonial and early American historians, still at it as he nears 90 years old. Second, each of the individual pieces (which originally appeared in the New York Review of Books between 1974 and 2002) reflects the typical Morgan virtues--extraordinary command of the pertinent literature, judicious comments, quick to offer praise where it is due, reluctantly critical when necessary, but always moderate and extraordinarily thoughtful in his judgments. Third, the books that comprise the focus of the individual essays are among some of the most significant published in the field. This makes for lively discussion by Morgan. The book is divided into four sections: "New Englanders," "Southerners", "Revolutionaries" and "Questions of Culture." Some of the better essays are on Franklin, "Plantation Blues,""How the French Lost America," and "The Great Political Fiction." Never one for quantitative history ("counting and computing"), Morgan only becomes cranky when that topic presents itself, although he does unload on the Library of America's collection of "American Sermons." The book is simply a feast for those interested in this period and fine historical writing.