Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United...

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States) | Gordon S. Wood | A new classic

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	Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States) Gordon S. Wood Oxford University Press, USA, 2009 - 800 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Introspective Look at U.S. Citizenry, Social Aspects and Philosophies

Gordon Wood is all history all the time. This book is wonderfully written and sets the reader into the timeline of 1789 to 1815. The book actually starts a little earlier with a very informative discussion about the Constitution that was created during the summer of 1787. Wood opens up the book with a thoughtful chapter on Republicanism in the New World and defined the thoughts and societal norms. It has always been difficult for me to read older books and articles from the 18th Century because I didn't understand their thought process. This first chapter helps in that respect tremendously. It also bridges the gap between the creation of the Constitution and the timeline for this book in the overall Oxford History of the United States.

From there Wood takes us on a tour of the first sitting of the Congress. What they did, what they voted on, how they acted and how utterly helpless many of them felt since they were starting with a completely blank slate. Author Gordon Wood takes us on a journey of the trials and politics of a fledgling nation. It is fascinating to imagine as Wood tells the stories of Hamilton and the need for a Central Bank, a superior Army, and basically his insubordination with President Adams. While Madison, once a strongly committed Federalist, changes politics to join ranks with Jefferson as the first signs of a Party system take hold. The "hows and whys" of our early national Founding Fathers are laid out as they struggle with their inner prejudices towards a Monarchical system even while attempting to allow the Common Man to become a part of the system that had so long been closed. This reader had no idea that the tides for and against our leaders were so whipsawed at this stage. In high school, it was basically taught that everyone was pulling in the same direction. This is certainly not so, and the stories behind the scenes are laid out without opinion by Wood.

Fascinating were the years when Washington stepped down and the Country was for the first time without a nationally known entity for leadership. The politics of the 1790's and the 1990's are very much similar and without such writing as Mr. Wood has provided, I'm sure that I would still be ignorant of this. The interplay between the "upcoming commoner" and the already existing aristocrat makes for interesting reading. Personal affronts were often settled by duels and fisticuffs on the Congressional floor.

Other topics covered are: Jefferson's rise to power and the influence that that French Revolution had on the new Republican Party, the Louisiana Purchase, Marshall's decision in Marbury v. Madison - the first time the Supreme Court declared a act of Congress to be unconstitutional, and then finally the War of 1812. So many firsts are uncovered and explained in detail along with the growing pains that each of these historic moments caused. They build a sense of wonder in the reader as to how this unique but fragile Constitution has held the United States together through it all.

I am by no means as expert as many of the other reviewers on this topic, but as a newly enthralled reader of history, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. However, it is not for the person looking for a quick hit of history. This is a length tome, but the reading is quite pleasurable.

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A new classic

Following the conclusion of the secretive Constitutional Convention in 1787, a woman approached Dr. Franklin to inquire if the new government would be a republic or a monarchy. Franklin's famous reply, "A republic if you can keep it" is illustrative of the many uncertainties which loomed over the American Republic. By the end of the War of 1812 America was able to believe that it was entitled "to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them" as the Declaration of Independence had so boldly asserted.

The United States in a mere twenty-six years created a national government with three separate branches, waged a war against threats to American shipping (and thus projected American naval power on a global scale), expanded not just west of the Alleghenies, but to the coast of Oregon and Washington state, waged a war at home against the most powerful nation on earth, established the principle of judicial review of Acts of Congress, enforced the federal rights of taxation with an assembled army, and amended the Constitution with the quintessential guarantees of personal freedom.

Gordon S. Wood, professor of history emeritus at Brown, has written a history of this period which will forever be considered a classic. No detail has seemed to escape his attention or interest. We learn that Adams (of all people) predicted that English would replace French as the language of diplomacy and that Noah Webster believed that American english would be within a century and a half the universal language of commerce. We read of the distrust of the courts by the citizenry and the forces were brought which to eliminate them. We witness the titanic struggles between the agrarian party (Jefferson's Republicans now known as the Democratic Party) and the manufacturers and bankers led ideologically by Hamilton. We watch Jefferson struggle with the role of religion within the newly established government.

As a lawyer and a history major, I have recognized the significance of this period in the early days of the Republic. However, I have never seen a work that so seamlessly has integrated the political, economic, diplomatic, jurisprudential, military and social history of this time. Like Adams I will make a modest prediction. Within ten years this volume will appear on the summer reading lists of every prep school in America, and on the bookshelves of every history major.

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An Entrancing Read.

I am well familiar with this period of American History, maybe too familiar in some regards, but I must say, Gordon S. Wood has been able to take what I know and enhance my views, positively/negatively, and that is not an easy task. It's the sheer amount of work and research on the subject at hand that makes Woods history of the Early Republic come alive.

Woods opens the events of the book with a killer setting, Versailles. A place so dripping with excess and flippant rule that it gives an air of gaudiness to the nature of its country. It works brilliantly, setting up the numbness and ambivalence the newly developing U.S. felt towards our own pretensions of splendor and excess. It's a brilliant opening that keeps flowing through the rest of the book. How the U.S. always fought not only its self but the a predetermined notion of high-society and aristocracy.

There are the usual list of players from Jefferson to Hamilton but what Woods does in abundance is not only fill in the motive for key maneuvering on the part of these men but their ultimate goals. And to drive his point home, there are huge backings of evidence to support him at every key moment in which you feel that their intuition was correct or misguided.

At well over 700 pages, Empire of Liberty, is a solid read. And at times, a bit of a gossip monger, but all of it helps to transport the reader. I would be lying to say I found fault with this book. It's made the rounds from my husband down to my stepfather, garnering the same praise from us all; it's one heck of a winning work, brilliant writing on a subject that we all know is impossible to summarize in the pages that it has been given.

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Brilliant Synthesis From The Dean of American Historical Studies

Gordon Wood's brilliant new study of the earliest years of the American republic is a most worthy addition to the marvelously comprehensive Oxford History of the United States series. Like its immediate predecessor, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (Oxford History of the United States), this new volume in the series takes advantage of the most recent scholarship in painting a compelling new synthesis of American history. Wood, of course, is one of the deans of American historical studies, and this work is really a kind of valedictory of his remarkable career.

Among the highlights of the book for this reader is the marvelously recounted rise of American partisan politics. The seeming naivete of the founding fathers in matters of party politics is really astounding. To them--and particularly to George Washington--political parties were anathema, and yet by the Adams and Jefferson administrations, the United States had descended to what must be the nadir of American politics, with more mudslinging in a period of a dozen years than we may have seen in the two succeeding centuries.

Wood also provides great insight into the rise of military power and in the tragic descent of the republic as a haven for slaveholders--a slide which lead inexorably to the civil war.

This is history at its finest.

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Superb Overview of Early US History

Somewhere along the way, historians quit writing strong narrative history, thankfully some still know how to do narrative history well and contribute to the scholarship. In "Empire of Liberty" Gordon Wood continues his story of early America with a gripping narrative of the development of the republic. Wood stresses the continued radical nature of the American experiment as it struggles with political birth pangs amid the division between Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans. Most impressive are his tightly drawn portraits of both the well known and obscure. I found his portrayal of Aaron Burr particularly telling. Despite its length, the books reads easily and quickly draws the reader into the very complicated world of early national America. Very well written and highly recommended, it would make an excellent textbook for a course on this era.

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