IN THE SPRINGTIME OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC

BOOK REVIEW

THE MEN WHO MADE THE NATION, JOHN DOS PASSOS, DOUBLEDAY AND COMPANY, NEW YORK, 1957

The title of this book gives away its age (it was originally written in 1957). No politically conscious publisher would dare present such an affront to today's sensibilities in the marketplace by not including others in the founding of the Republic. And they are right. That said, this little vignette into the foundation of the American Republic by John Dos Passos is still a very good read about the post-revolutionary struggle to form a frame of national government out of the welter of conflicting appetites raised by the formal independence from "Mother England". John Dos Passos, at one time a writer whose star was as bright as Ernest Hemingway's, seems to have slipped some in the literary pantheon but his classic USA trilogy and other works are unjustly neglected. Yes, I know as he grew older he grew more conservative and thus beyond the pale. Nobody was as shocked as I was, after having read his progressive socially conscious works on the Jazz Age in America and on Republican Spain, to find him in the early 1960’s as a sponsor of the reactionary Young Americans for Freedom. But enough of that. Let's get to this effort and what it means.

The events of the American Revolution and the process of building an effective national government from scratch today is covered with so much banal ceremony, flag- waving, unthinking sunshine patriotism and hubris it is hard to see the forest for the trees to the days when, as Lincoln stated, during that other great progressive action of this country's history- the Great Civil War of 1861-65 that this country was the last, best hope for civilization. Note this well- those men and women who rebelled against the king from Washington on down were big men and women out to do a big job. And they did it. A quick look at the political landscape today makes one thing clear. This country has no such men or women among its leaders today-not even close.

The usual cast of characters and defining events are here- the august, if somewhat fickle and prickly, Washington, the closet monarchist Adams, the not so closet monarchist Hamilton, the republican Jefferson, the fiery republican Madison, their hangers-on and underlings, their political fights and their differing conceptions of government. Dos Passos, as an experienced novelist, is able to bring these people alive, including lesser lights like Gouvernour Morris, Robert Morris (not related) and the Randolphs, with plenty of anecdotal musings about their strengths and weaknesses. For those familiar with the story of American nation building this book may not reveal anything new but for others- read on.

A Fresh Look At 1776- The Great American Revolution

This year marks the 232th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. A lot has gone wrong with the promise presented by that document and the revolution that went with it but we nevertheless justly still commemorate that event today. The point is to take that history out of the hands of the sunshine patriots who have appropriated it- and by the look of things - we better make it pronto.

BOOK REVIEW

1776, David McCullough, Simon&Schuster, New York, 2005

Regular readers of this space will recognize that I spend a fair amount of time discussing the lessons of, or looking at specific aspects of, the three great European revolutions- the English, French and the Russian. I have also given a fair amount of space to the grandeur of the American Civil War. I have, in contrast, tended to give short shrift to the virtues of the American Revolution. This is flat out wrong. Thus, over the past couple of years I have tried to rectify that slight by increasing the amount of space given over to various aspects of the American Revolution, mainly biographic sketches. Today I continue that shift with a review of the well-known historian and documentary narrator David McCullough’s 1776.

Part of the reason for selecting Mr. McCullough’s work is the personal need to go over again the specifics of the revolutionary period. You know, the battle of this or that, or some military operation led by whomever. However, the more pressing reason is that Mr. McCullough has written an important book centered on detailing the creation of the American revolutionary national liberation army, its trials, tribulations and faults. Moreover, McCullough has written his narrative of events in an easy to follow way, including some very insightful commentary about various turning points in the revolutionary experience, like the effect of the issuance of the Declaration of Independence on the morale of the troops in the field.

The key to understanding the eventual success of the American colonial struggle against bloody England was the coalescing of a ragtag, localized basically over-sized weekend militia into first a New England- wide then a continent-wide army worthy of the name. Along the way cadres were formed that saw the struggle through to the end. No revolutionary movement can be successful without that accrual. The case of Henry Knox, local Boston bookseller turned military magician, bringing captured cannon from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston in order to help ‘push’ the British out of Boston is just the most dramatic case of such cadre development

Equally as important, the names Washington, Gates and Knox and lesser cadre keep coming up repeatedly during this narrative, and rightly so. That points to the decisive question that the narration of events here turns on- leadership at crunch time. A whole school of historians, at one time at least, tended to diminish the role that Washington played in keeping these ragtag forces together. McCullough, rightly I think, challenges that assumption and places the Washington leadership as a key component to success.

McCullough, moreover, intentionally or not, through his narrative not only traces the development of Washington as a leader in the abstract but how he fares during the various campaigns. Thus we are treated to the high of his maneuvers in the key fight that led to the evacuation of Boston by the British in March of 1776, and then the low of the shifting of the struggle to the south with the devastating initial colonial defeats in the greater New York area when the militarsy forces of British imperialism got into high gear and applied its muscle.

Thereafter McCullough details the various retreats down through New Jersey and ends the year with the famous Battle of Trenton that was key to the survival of the revolutionary army in its first year. The narrative breaks off there. Although the opponents slugged it out for several more years the maintenance of a functioning revolutionary army in the field pointed positively toward the conclusion that victory was possible. Read this book and learn more about some of our common revolutionary history.