Proponents of American exceptionalism cast their rather dubious beliefs upon the erroneous notion that American roots and identity can only be traced back to North American history, most specifically to the period of the American Revolution. Clearly, they would surmise, there is something unique about the American experience that explains our relatively rapid rise to worldly prominence.
Any such mistaken thinkers should quickly locate a copy of Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Bailyn wastes little time establishing that the mores and traditions that reinforce an identity unique to Americans (sentiments not shared by the international community) were in fact shaped and forged over a hundred years ago - in England. It is fitting that Bailyn should make such a conclusion, and based on creditable evidence. Bailyn, one of Harvard's best and an authority on early America and the American revolution, was one of the leaders that later helped redefine early American history by pushing the early twentieth century idea of Atlantic History, conceptualized by WW1 era intellectuals, into modernity.[1]
Using an advanced method, Bailyn manages to compare pre English Civil War literature with the literature that predated the American Revolution by about a generation. His startling conclusion is that both intellectual traditions are too similar in tone, argument, and in such manifest design[2] to be a coincidence or merely effective propaganda. Pre revolution pamphlet authors were well into the revolutionary and nation building stages at least twenty years before the so called intolerable acts and the first of the continental congresses.
To be sure, enlightenment thought played a role, as did classical influences, especially those works that debate Rome's own constitutional crisis in ancient times. But Bailyn thoroughly rejects the New School's Beard and his limited conceptualization of the revolution as a social economic contest between actors encouraged by the enlightenment alone.[3] Indeed, Bailyn's cleaver use of a specific selection of revolutionary literature, pamphlets published between 1750 through 1776, reveal an American mind not previously discovered, with applications ranging from religious concerns to those concerning the American interpretation of the English constitution and common law.
The strengths of this work are its broad Atlantic connections, a Bailyn hallmark. He masterfully uses sources that had previously been unavailable due to the so called Atlantic schism that had long divided scholars and limited history to mostly regional perspectives. Bailyn is also successful in taking a closer look at material that in the past had been disregarded as propaganda. However, although Bailyn spends an entire chapter attempting to bring pamphlets to the vanguard of this period’s historical consciousness, he fails to persuade. It is true that pamphlets were designed to have more content than a broadside. And they afforded more independent content than a newspaper. However, these sources were no more of less effective in spreading the notions of liberty resident during the time.
Regardless of the selection criteria, the sources do speak for themselves. Bernard Bailyn has broken an age old mold that many had previously mistaken as the source of, and still continues to shape American national character today.
[1] Bailyn, Bernard, Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005)
[2] This is a reference to Thomas R. Hietala’s Manifest Design; central to his thesis is the idea of American nation building and westward imperial expansion long before the revolution much less the 19th century.
[3] General information on Beard discerned from reference material. Bailyn references Beard’s philosophy in his introduction.
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