The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800 | Jay Winik

The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800 | Jay Winik | One of todays finest wiriters of History

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The Great Upheaval...

	The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800 Jay Winik Harper, 2007 - 688 pages average customer review:based on 42 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Great Upheaval

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and thoroughly interesting. It included many short biographies of famous people of the day such as Ben Franklin, George Washington, Catherine the Great, Potemkin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Paul Jones, Robespierre, Louis IV and Louis the XVI, and even Marie Antoinette. I learned so much about history and geography while reading something as enjoyable as fiction. A great book!

One of todays finest wiriters of History

Jay Winik's tale of the closing decade of the eighteenth century, is a masterly woven tapestry linking the great events and personages of the infant United States, the butcher shop that Paris became during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and the Russian Imperial Court under Catherine, The Great. Winik brings to familar events a global perspective giving them the dramatic thrust of a great novel. It stands with the works of Barbars Tuchman, and Doris Kearns Godwin as an essential work of modern historical writing.

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The Great Upheaval: Seismic Events in the 1790's led to revolutionary change in the first chapter of the modern world's story

Jay Winik is best known for his popular "April, 1865" dealing with the final chapter in the sanguinary American Civil War. In this new 600 page tome we see Winik taking a detailed look at the world of the 1790s.
Winik's asserts that the world in those distant days was intertwined and connected in ways we internet-tied moderns might not suppose. Ideas and persons traveled great distances. Little was done unheralded in distant corners. Event did have repercussion globally.Scholars and philosophers such as Voltaire, Rosseau; political theorists such as Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke had their works read and discussed from St. Petersburg to the farms and villages of America.
Winik examines the decade of the 1790s in three major nations: The United States, France and Russia. What we learn are:
1, In America the post-revolutionary age leads to the development of political partisanship. Alexander Hamilton, John Adams led the Federalists who were pro-British, pro-big business and supported a strong federal government. Their vision has become manifest in the modern behemoth of industry and wealth that is the United States in the 21st century. Thomas Jefferson led the Republicans favoring agrarian culture, states-rights and support of the French Revolution. We meet in the America sections such giants as George Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams getting good character sketches of these titans and their beliefs. Despite bitter politics and such revolts against the government as the Whiskey Rebellion America was emerging as a world beacon of democratic representative government. Winik makes clear that the fireball in the night "slavery" was a problem which was not resolved; left to linger until it resulted in the Civil War. The conflict between a strong national government and states-rights proponents was also left settled leading to the major conflict over this issue in the nineteenth century.
France was a land runniing with the blood of saints and sinners as the French Revolution destroyed the Bourbon dynasty, executed Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and overe 40.000 others in the horrific Reign of Terror.
We see such revolutionaries as Robspierre, Marat, Danton and the emergence of Napoleon Bonaparte. We see French society torn asunder. These sections are the saddest as we contemplate a revolution turned into tyrrany and repression. The French Revolution was a harbinger of such brutal regimes as those led by Stalin, Hilter and Mao in the twentieth century.
In Russia the redoubtable Catherine the Great destroyed Polish freedom; reigned Mother Russia as an enlighted despot and made passionate love to Potemkin and countless other favorites. She seized the Crimea and fought with fury against the Islamic Ottoman's who ruled Turkey with intrigue, murder and fear. Catherine is a fascinating woman well examined by Winik.
The book is written in a very readable, accessible style which is geared at the educated general populace. Winik has made some mistakes; the books is riddled with typos; it is well illustrated including good maps.
Among his many errors are:
a. He says Robert E. Lee was two years old in 1800 when he was not even born until 1807!
b. Position is used instead of postillon! What an egregious error to let slip by a coypeditor!
c. He confuses Anthony Trollope (not born until 1815) with his mother Frances Trollope who wrote a British bestseller on her journey to America.
The book offers little that is new to the historian but does make for enjoyable reading and learning. Jay Winik is one of our best popular historians moving into that class inhabited by the likes of David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Joseph Ellis and Robert Dallek.

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Too many mistakes

I wanted to like this book. I really did. It's a fascinating approach to a pivotal period in history. The author's treatment of the major players is well done and often insightful. What I can't forgive is the sheer number of mistakes. After a while, I lost count. Here's a sampling:
1. In the introduction and again in the epilogue, Winik states Alexander I of Russia became czar at age 24 on the murder of his father Paul I in March 1801. Yet on pages 438 and 440, he has Alexander being 15 at Catherine the Great's death in November 1796, which would make Alexander the first czar to age nine years in just over four. Actually, Alexander was five weeks short of his 19th birthday when Catherine died, and 23 when he became czar.
2. On page 6, Winik has Louis XIII of France dying in 1642 instead of the correct year, 1643.
3. On page 135, Winik says Louis XVI was orphaned at age 10, when he was actually 11 when his father died, and 12 at his mother's death. Also, on page 137, he has Louis being 16 when he married Marie Antoinette, when he was several months short of his 16th birthday.
4. On page 202, he has Grigory Potemkin distinguishing himself at the battle of Cesme. This is unlikely, as Cesme was a naval battle, and Potemkin was in the army.
5. John Paul Jones was born John Paul, not Paul Jones, Jr as Winik states on pg. 209. Also Jones died in 1792, not 1794 (pg 215).
6. Mikhail Kutuzov's eye costing wound occured in 1774 during Catherine's first Turkish war, not in 1788 during her second (pg. 219).
7. Selim III became sultan of the Ottoman empire at 27, not 18 (pg. 223).
8. Twice, on pg. 263 and 319, it's stated Catherine the Great was pushing 60, when in fact she was already 60.
9. On pg. 382, Marie Antoinette's age is given as 38, when she died just over two weeks shy of that age.
10. Alexander Hamilton's wife's name was Elizabeth Schuyler, not Jane Schyler as listed on pg. 478. Actually, considering how often he cites Ron Chernow's (excellent) biography of Hamilton in his notes, you think Winik would get this right.
11. On pg. 507, John Adams' year of birth is given as 1738. I'll chalk this up to a typo, as the correct year (1735) is given on pg. 21.
12. On pg. 558, Robert E. Lee is said to be two in early 1800. Lee wasn't born until 1807.
13. The Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact was signed in 1939, not 1941 (pg. 567).
I know there's a few i missed, but I think you get the gist of things.

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Great Upheaval

The Great Upheaval is an interesting overview of a crucial period, but it offers nothing new in either concept or research. I find the author's florid prose and not infrequent misuse of words quite annoying. This disappointing book would have benefited from skilled editing.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9

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