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Summary
Summary
The last two decades have witnessed an explosion of interest in the founding fathers so intense that a reader or television viewer of today might imagine that America was the creation of beings who were flawless in their wisdom and courage. As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edmund S. Morgan shows here, Americans have long been obsessed with their heroes. But, drawing on a lifetime of scholarship, he presents a different cast of characters--among them Indians, witches, heretics, and naysayers--men and women who went against the grain, in addition to the stock figures of our national hagiography.
Morgan has mined the seventeenth century and has identified several new heroes, among them Giles Cory and Mary Easty, accused witches, who were put to death when Puritanism went wrong at Salem in 1692. Pressured to reprieve herself by admitting her guilt and naming friends and neighbors as confederates in witchcraft, Easty declared, "I dare not belie my own soul." Her humble statement stands as the ultimate expression of the religious principles that led to the founding of New England, principles temporarily abandoned by the rulers of Massachusetts Bay who tried and sentenced her.
While American Heroes celebrates the lives and principles of ordinary Americans, the book also considers the legacy of some of our most prominent colonial and Revolutionary leaders, among them William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. Franklin and Washington are best known for standing against the repressive and often brutal regime of Great Britain's colonial policies, but here Morgan makes the case for their heroism in standing up to their own countrymen. When Americans were demanding precipitate action, Washington and Franklin got the nation off to a good start by knowing when to say no.
Whether presenting the scandalous story of a Puritan husband whose on-and-off marriage to a beleaguered Puritan heiress illustrates the nexus between property and sex, or assessing the power of books to subvert the standing order and alter the course of history, American Heroes rises above hagiography in challenging the reader to conceive of American individuality and idealism in new terms. Morgan, who credits his mentor Perry Miller "with the best historical mind of his generation," has shown throughout his own career an unrivaled originality and intellectual courage. American Heroes demonstrates Morgan's fascination with our national identity and his abiding affection for the men and women whose character, honesty, and moral courage make plain that heroism in America can be found in unexpected places.
Author Notes
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Edmund Morgan spent most of his youth in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was educated at the Belmont Hill School, Harvard, and the London School of Economics. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1942 and three years later began his teaching career at the University of Chicago.From there he moved first to Brown University and then to Yale, where he became Sterling Professor in 1965 and emeritus in 1986.
Morgan's historical writings greatly enhance our understanding of such complex aspects of the American experience as Puritanism, the Revolution, and the relationship between slavery and racism. At the same time, they captivate readers in the classroom and beyond. His work is a felicitous blend of rigorous scholarship, imaginative analysis, and graceful presentation.
Although sometimes characterized as the quintessential Whig historian, in reality Morgan transcends simplistic categorization and has done more, perhaps, than any other historian to open new and creative paths of inquiry into the meaning of the early American experience.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Despite the lowbrow title, these are intelligent, opinionated essays on America between 1600 and 1800. Morgan, a revered historian and the bestselling author of Benjamin Franklin, wrote the earliest chapter in 1937, the latest in 2005. Many describe obscure events but pack a surprising punch. In "Dangerous Books," the author tells the story of Yale (where he is professor emeritus), founded in 1701 as a bastion of Puritanism, but with a library of works by English Enlightenment intellectuals. In 1721 six members of the faculty, including the rector, horrified the community by publicly renouncing Calvinism. The last official American execution for witchcraft occurred in 1692, but the popular belief in witchcraft continued well into the 19th century: in a marvelously recounted vignette, Morgan describes Philadelphia in 1787, where a few miles from the halls where America's elite were debating our Constitution, a mob abused and finally killed an old woman accused of witchcraft. Three of the 17 essays are previously unpublished. Happily, all are up to the standards of this wise, venerable (now 93) and deeply thoughtful historian. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Morgan's six-decade career encompasses award-winning works on colonial American history, but these 17 historical essays share the salient trait of surprise. Each imparts something about a topic that harbored the unexpected, even for their erudite author. Morgan's counter-intuition generally arises from his doubt about conventional wisdom, such as that Puritans abominated sex, or that American exceptionalism is rooted in the sermon famous for likening America to a city upon a hill. Morgan argues of those cases that the Puritans made their accommodations to human concupiscence and that Massachusetts founder John Winthrop was merely exhorting harmony among his colonists. Elsewhere Morgan presents incidents that are just intrinsically interesting. Those of a Puritan woman who tenaciously litigated her inheritance and of a victim of mob violence as an accused witch, of all things, who was harried within earshot of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, reflect Morgan's attention to the character of women's lives. As varied as Anne Hutchinson and William Penn, Morgan's subjects should intrigue readers reexamining assumptions about colonial history.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2009 Booklist
Kirkus Review
From a body of work stretching back seven decades, a Pulitzer Prizewinning historian selects 17 essays on characters large and small who illuminate early American history. Morgan (The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America, 2004, etc.) offers something new about well-known public heroes, identifying, for example, those issues over which the famously pragmatic Benjamin Franklin refused to compromise. The author shows how John Winthrop's exhortations to the Bay colonists brought "disagreements to a happy issue," preventing a Jamestown-style collapse, and why Anne Hutchinson's dissent, while attractive to our modern sensibilities, posed such a serious threat to the Puritans. He also pens a superb 40-page sketch of William Penn's character and career. Morgan excels, though, at limning lesser-known figures. He traces the tortuous marital history of Puritan heiress Anna Keayne, examines the Puritan caricature Michael Wigglesworth, assesses the historical reputations of Yale presidents Ezra Stiles and Timothy Dwight and toasts the courage of Giles Corey and Mary Easty, who nearly died for their refusal to submit to Salem's witchcraft madness. The author also demonstrates that groups can be heroes: the Arawak Indians of Hispaniola, whose demise constitutes the sad first chapter of the European transformation of the Western Hemisphere; the Antifederalists, whose important opposition to the Constitution's ratification led to the Bill of Rights. This uniformly strong collection boasts an insightful, even startling, observation"Government requires make-believe"on nearly every page. If the concluding appreciation of Harvard's famed historian Perry Miller seems out of place, Morgan may be forgiven for honoring a man who, like Morgan himself, has left us with the "record of a mind" that has thought deeply and creatively about our history. Outstanding. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
This book is a perfect gem. None of the 17 essays here has been published previously in book form, and three of them appear here for the first time. Morgan (Sterling Professor Emeritus, Yale; Inventing the People), the winner of just about every major book award, including the Pulitzer, ranges from Christopher Columbus, to the Puritans and sex (which they liked, providing it was in marriage), William Penn, the Anti-Federalists, and historian Perry Miller. Two characteristics that tie the essays together are Morgan's penchant for taking contrarian views of accepted orthodoxies and his admiration for individuals who stood up against authority. His piece on the development of Yale's library in the 18th century demonstrates that books are valuable because they keep alive the memory of dissident voices that otherwise might be drowned out by official, hagiographical versions of a nation's past. His chapter on George Washington and Benjamin Franklin points out that one of the traits that made them great was their ability to say "no" when popular opinion wanted them to act in one way or another. Both specialists and general readers will find this book both authoritative and fun to read. Highly recommended.-Thomas J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Preface | p. xi |
Part 1 The Conquerors | |
Chapter 1 The Conquerors | p. 3 |
Part 2 Puritans, Witches, and Quakers | |
Chapter 2 Dangerous Books | p. 23 |
Chapter 3 The Unyielding Indian | p. 39 |
Chapter 4 John Winthrop's Vision | p. 54 |
Chapter 5 The Puritans and Sex | p. 61 |
Chapter 6 The Problems of a Puritan Heiress | p. 75 |
Chapter 7 The Case against Anne Hutchinson | p. 90 |
Chapter 8 The Puritan's Puritan: Michael Wigglesworth | p. 102 |
Chapter 9 The Courage of Giles Cory and Mary Easty | p. 112 |
Chapter 10 Postscript: Philadelphia 1787 | p. 130 |
Chapter 11 The Contentious Quaker: William Penn | p. 139 |
Chapter 12 Ezra Stiles and Timothy Dwight | p. 177 |
Part 3 Revolutionary Leaders | |
Chapter 13 The Power of Negative Thinking: Benjamin Franklin and George Washington | p. 197 |
Chapter 14 The End of Franklin's Pragmatism | p. 209 |
Chapter 15 The Founding Fathers' Problem: Representation | p. 222 |
Chapter 16 The Role of the Antifederalists | p. 241 |
Epilogue The Genius of Perry Miller | p. 251 |
Acknowledgments | p. 259 |
Index | p. 261 |