This is a truly fascinating and engaging work. The meaning of indepence from Great Britain is much more profound that one would think on first thought. With this idea in mind, Morgan penetrates to the fundamental ideas and characters of each three men. For both Washington and Adams, I must say that he is right on target. His account of Jefferson is also good, although I cannot help but wonder why Morgan spends some much time and space castigating the man for what he views to be his short-comings. Regardless of the actual merit of his criticisms, he clearly strays rather far from the subject of the work. Nevertheless, the piece as a whole is gem.

Edmund Morgan is perhaps the most readable American colonial historian. Best known for his books on the Puritans and colonial slavery, Morgan here presents three lectures on what three founding fathers thought about independence. George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson are three very complicated individuals, and no short lecture is going to completely explicate their ideas. But Morgan brings his typical verve and clarity to the subject, and speaking as a AP history teacher, I found them to be well worth my time.

I first encountered Morgan's wonderful book in a college history class (thanks, Dr. Bourdon!), but this is no dry academic tome (personally, I think that there is no reason an academic book has to be dry, anyway). The book's three essays--one each on the named presidents and their points of view on the struggle that produced this nation--are both insightful and pleasurable reading. For the casual reader, there is Morgan's gift for anecdote. His description of the personality conflict between Adams and Benjamin Franklin is hilarious, as is Adams' timeless description of the tedium of legislatures (some things really do never change!). That said, there is also serious analysis of these three men, and what each contributed, thought, and said, written with a critcal but respectful tone. It's hard to say which essay is the best, but those who despise Thomas Jefferson for hypocrisy should certainly read his section, and learn about his genuine, if tempered, idealism--a trait we could use more of in the 1990's. This is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to broaden and deepen his or her knowledge of the origins of this country.

This was a wonderful overview of many of the different aspects of the American Revolution. It deposes many widely held myths, but is never cynical. It presented many interesting ideas and opens up many new avenues of study. It is perfect for anyone who would just like to know more about why the American Revolution took place than the surface skimming that most of us got in High School and College.

Edmund Morgan is America's most readable colonial historian, author of the ground-breaking "American Freedom, American Slavery" and the seminal "The Puritan Family" among other classics. This collection of loosely organized essays about the American Revolution is not meant as an introduction to the subject (for which see Morgan's "Birth of the Republic"), but a conversation for those who already know something of the subject. These essays range from a discussion of the sources of the revolution (legal, traditional rights, intellectual, religious) to the conflicts between the calls to freedom and the existence of slavery. First-rate reading for anybody interested in the subject area, but especially for AP history teachers like me.

"Racism became an essential, if unacknowledged, ingredient of the republican ideology that enabled Virginians to lead the nation." writes Edmund S. Morgan in 1975, and ends this book with the rhetorical question: "Is America still colonial Virginia writ large?"

These are deeply disturbing questions - questions one is compelled to ponder as one reads this lucid and dispassionate presentation of the how primitive accumulation in Virginia at the beginning of the 17th century was replaced a century later by an orderly and opulent society based on slavery. The answer to such questions is not made easy by the realisation that the only other successful republican experiment - the Athenian democracy - blossomed too on a bed of slavery.

Do these questions matter today? Have we not moved on from racism? I'm afraid not. Again the voice of Morgan: "In the republican way of thinking, zeal for liberty and equality could go hand in hand with contempt for the poor and plans for enslaving them." Sounds eerily familiar? Just as today's language used to describe terrorist threats is redolent of the rhetoric that once surrounded the lynching of black bodies. Racism (albeit globalised) is re-visiting the land today, and so are republican virtues and values.

The book is long, and in some ways, too detailed. Morgan delights in the telling particular, and at times one wishes he would not linger on some specifics. But this has a purpose. He wants to show the imperceptible and surreptitious mechanisms by which a society acquires its ugly and immoral traits until they become so natural as to be invisible. Step by step, event by event, law by law a construction emerges that would have horrified its founders. Yet, at the time, it seamed the logical, and the right thing to do.

A strong point in Morgan's narrative is the links he highlights between the developments in Virginia and the Britain's commercial interests, migration policies, population growth and control, state revenue, and political history or thought. One can better appreciate the import of Virginia for Britain and the mother country's fixation and fascination for the North American colonies.

Brash and brutal, Virginian slavery stood openly as godmother at the foundation of the American Republic. Other aspects of slavery also contributed significantly - but as they were indirect, they remained veiled and are hardly recognised even today. New England benefited greatly from its cod trade to the Caribbean, where the product that was found to be unfit for European markets was fed to the slaves, thus freeing up land that otherwise would have been used to sustain them. When will we get a total picture of slavery's import for America's economic foundations?

This is an excellent, in depth survey of Virginia's colonial experience, with an emphasis on how the seemingly contradictory institutions of slavery and equalitarian republicanism developed simultaneously. Indeed, Morgan argues that Virginians' definition of freedom, and their very ability to establish a republican political system, rested upon the creation of African slavery. Morgan shows that institutionalized slavery did not necessarily have to become part of British colonization; the earliest Englishmen to dream of a colonial empire hoped for the establishment of a utopian community in which natives could benefit from enlightened English governance that recognized the inherent rights of all men. Early English explorers even helped to organize revolts against the Spanish by their slaves in Latin America, and while they were motivated by their own interests in doing so, they clearly were willing to treat their slave co-conspirators as equals. However, the utopian phase of colonization died with the failed settlement at Roanoke in the 1580s. The founders of Jamestown quickly learned racism towards the Indians, whom Morgan speculates they goaded into warfare out of frustration at their own inability to support themselves.

The settlement eventually became prosperous as the colonists learned to produce tobacco for market, but it was hardly the ideal society envisioned by the founders. Labor shortages were endemic, as to make a profit planters needed to control a large number of indentured servants. Unfortunately (for the planters), laborers needed only to serve for a limited period before setting up business for themselves, and thus creating competition for the planters. To check this competition, planters made it difficult for freedmen to buy lands of their own (land was plentiful, but acreage with access to shipping had been almost totally monopolized by the large planters), which resulted in freedmen foregoing planting, and becoming lazy, shiftless, and at times rebellious. Moreover, planters treated their indentured servants so poorly that as news of their condition drifted back to England, fewer of the mother country's poor were willing to indenture themselves, especially as the burdens of overpopulation were being reduced at home.

By the 1670s, conditions were ripe for the importation of African slaves, as planters had accumulated capital from past harvests, the supply of indentured servants had slackened, life expectancy had increased to the point where buying a servant for life was cost efficient, and the increasingly rebellious nature of English freedmen convinced the colony's leaders that to encourage growth in the ranks of Virginia's poor could be disastrous. At first, African imports faced restrictions no different from those of white servants, except that their terms of service were fixed for life, and poor whites and black slaves even formed friendships, recognizing the commonality of their interests. This sense of camaraderie alarmed the colony's leaders, who early in the 18th century sought to differentiate the interests of black and white laborers, codifying special discriminations against blacks and fostering a racist attitude towards them. Lower class whites were now allowed to rise in social and economic status, since planters needed them to think in terms of the unity of whites as a social class, rather than in terms of economic class. At the same time, the new emphasis in England upon legislative supremacy and the 'rights of Englishmen' carried over to Virginia, leading planter-legislators to curry the favor of lower class voters.

Popular political participation provided the roots of republicanism, as racial slavery allowed whites across social classes to see themselves as political and social equals. Poverty was seen as a threat to republicanism, since the poor would owe their votes to their creditors and benefactors, and must therefore be kept out of the political system. Racial slavery was the perfect way to identify the poor and keep them subdued and out of politics, thus ensuring the liberty of property owners of all economic levels. Blacks took on (at least in the eyes of whites) the attributes that had always been assigned to England's poor, and identifying those negative qualities with race only made it easier for committed republicans to justify their inequality. Thus, in Virginia, contempt for the poor became contempt for blacks, and while northerners could decry slavery, they could also accept that republicanism rested upon keeping the poor and landless down.

This scholarly examination of the roots of slavery in colonial virginia connects its development to the social economic and political environment as it evolved over a century and a half. Very interesting reading on a complex subject.

The professor who required this book in the class I took a few years ago knows the author, Edmund Morgan, personally. She told a story of how she and several other professors were having dinner with Morgan during a History convention. One professor remarked that Morgan's resume must be as thick as a book due to his successful career. Morgan responded that he had no resume and the other professors realized that if Morgan needed funding for a certain project, his name was all that was needed. After reading this book, I can understand why Morgan is so respected in his field. Not only is this work well researched but the writing style is very engaging. Morgan covers the following topics: Puritan ideology and views on freedom; marriage (a husband's authority was actually more limited than in other societies); parents and children (children-even girls-left home to live with their master as an apprentice in their chosen, or their parent's chosen, calling or, in the case of girls, house keeping); the importance of early education; punishment; masters and servants (a master was as responsible for the soul of his servant as he was for the soul of his child); the church and social order (Puritans should live in families as solitude was cause for suspicion); and tribalism. In the first chapter, Morgan explains the paradox between good conduct and salvation in Puritan belief. Good conduct was regarded as the result of salvation not the cause of it. . Anyone interested in Puritan life will find this 186-page book an excellent introduction.

I wasn't sure whether this was going to be a positive or a negative survey of Puritan life and times when I started reading it. Most people don't have very many nice things to say about them- usually comments about black clothing and the Salem witch trials. But the truth is, although the Puritans had plenty of problems, they've gotten a bit of a bad rap in history. They were actually far more lively and earthy than most people would suspect; they had much more in common with Shakespeare's times than with Victorian England.

And so Morgan's thesis is not that the Puritan's were ascetics or prudes- they weren't. Rather, their real fault lay in a sort of 'Christian tribalism', in the belief that since the elect in any generation were few in number anyway, they could avoid evangelism in favor of spiritual isolationism. Since the reasoned that the Church of one generation was generally comprised of the children of the last generation, their only real task was to preach to the choir. And so they fell into a decay of the soul that manifested itself as outward prosperity and inward apathy. Their zeal dissipated into mere trans-generational commercial institutionalism and snobbery. And so the foundation they laid down gradually faded into the overall fabric of a quickly growing Colonial society.

But in spite of their faults, the Puritans contributed a vast amount of effort and philosophy towards the make-up of American society today. And although they may be remembered for their obsessions with the devil and witches, they were not in fact the sum of their mistakes. It's easy to criticize in retrospect. Morgan's book helps provide a more thorough understanding of the why's and not just the what's of their history. Once the reader comes to an understanding of how the Puritans thought, he will have more appreciation for their contributions and more charity in his assessment of their foibles.

The Puritan Family was an admirably balanced study of a people with a colorful past. It was first published over 50 years ago, and it certainly won't alter current perceptions of what Puritanism was, but it's still a very informative read for anyone who is interested in the truth, and not in stereotypes.

This is the (slightly revised) doctoral dissertation by Edmund Morgan, one of the most renowned of all American historians. It analyzes Puritan society by exploring the relationships among these early New Englanders. Although he discusses master-servant relationships, his main focus is on the family. The reason for this is that the Puritans saw the family as the highest social institution, and as the foundation of their churches and government. Indeed, he shows how the family relationship is extended to explain their relationship to God (ie-they saw themselves as both the sons of God and as the bride of Christ).

It is one of Morgan's earliest works, and the concluding chapter sets the stage for his later "Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea." No serious student of colonial New England can neglect this book, if only because of the enormous impact of its author.

For those of you whose idea of American history only stretches back to 1776, you might want to fill in the gaps with this book. Morgan not only takes the reader through the war that made our country independent, the Revolutionary War, but also how "the challenge of British taxation started the Americans on a search for constitutional principles to protect their freedom." He takes you into the hearts of the colonists and the minds of the diplomats. At the end of the book, Morgan masterfully places copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the United States Constitution so you, the reader, can see the effects of the events and outcomes that you just read about. Great book to enhance your knowledge of history, I give The Birth of the Republic 4 out of 5 stars making it "almost perfect."

Originally published in 1956 and revised in 1977, this book is probably familiar to a couple of generations of college students. This may well be the most accessible overview of the formative history of America. As an overview, of course, it does not go into great detail about the myriad of topics debated by historians still today, but it does hit most of the predominant features of the Revolutionary story. Morgan builds his work around the premise that the Founding Fathers did indeed operate on principle in building a new nation and that the struggle eventually framed itself as a pursuit of equality among all men. He admits that many of the decisions made by the leaders of the Revolution did equate to economic or property gains for themselves, but he argues that this is not contradictory at all with a commitment to liberty because liberty in the 18th century essentially hinged on land ownership. He also rationalizes the contradiction of slavery's continued existence being incorporated into the Constitution by arguing that the convention delegates acted out of urgent concern for the future of a government in its death throes at the hands of a powerless Congress as set up by the Articles of Confederation--without such compromise, the important new Constitution could not have been ratified by a sufficient number of states before the young nation collapsed at the feet of the British and Spanish.

Morgan first examines the increasingly rocky relationship between the English Parliament and the colonies--specifically, the debate over taxation and infringement of liberties that led up to the declaration of independence. He devotes a few pages to the war but does not delve very deeply into military matters. Morgan does an excellent job explaining why the Articles of Confederation failed and how the problems of that system were widely recognized, frankly debated, and resolved in the creation of a new national government established upon the bedrock of a new federal Constitution.

Aside from Morgan's excellent treatment of the birth of the American republic, this book also features the texts of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and federal Constitution; a timeline of important events; and a pretty expansive discussion of source materials published before 1977. In sum, this book is ideal for anyone just wanting to learn or review the pivotal events surrounding the creation of the United States without having to sift through scholarly criticisms and debates of important yet secondary aspects of the story.

This book is a great over view of the time before, during, and after the revolution. I must confess that I read this as a required text book for my American history class. It is the first and possibly only text book that I can say I liked well enough to read all the way through and like it. This book goes very breifly over the events in a very readable fashion. Those studying history (such as myself) can always read a companion to the revolution along with it to go more in depth into the revolution. For those who only want a brief history this book is perfect.

Benjamin Franklin's life is one of the most fascinating in American life--he was a diplomat, legislator, printer and scientist. In this admittedly short biography in an admittedly crowded field (there have been a handful of similar books published in recent years), Edmund Morgan attempts to give us an impression of the character of the man.

He starts with his athleticism, moves on to his views of religion and morals, and so on. Those who are unfamiliar with the factual details of Franklins life will be confused by the sudden appearance of details: Referring to his wife, Morgan writes: "He spent the last ten years of her life away from her in London." This comes as a shock as we haven't yet been told he spent so much time in the mother country.

Morgan readily admits that the work is based largely on a recent compilation of Franklin documents on disk ("...and not much else")and doesn't offer original research.

In sum, this becomes a difficult book to read and cannot be recommended except perhaps as an adjunct to Franklin-devotees who've already finished reading several more orthodox biographies.

There is probably no American that deserves a big biography more than Benjamin Franklin. To be sure, he has many, as befits a writer, printer, scientist, inventor, pamphleteer, statesman, and Founding Father. Now there is a remarkable small one, _Benjamin Franklin_ (Yale University Press) by Edmund S. Morgan. The author has won various prizes for history writing, but it is clear that he loves this subject. The book was begun as a preface to a digital edition of Franklin's works. Morgan writes that scholars have struggled to come up with every scrap that Franklin wrote, and it will all eventually fill around fifty printed volumes. It is all now "available on one small disk, a product of those inconceivable discoveries he dreamt of." Morgan has read all the disk "but not much else" in order to write a purposely short book (300 pages) as "a letter of introduction to a man worth knowing, worth spending time with." This is not a standard biography; we do not learn about his forebears and his birth, nor do we attend him at his death. There is no speculation about the mother of his son William, and little about his common-law wife Deborah. This is not because of restrictions of length, but more because Morgan has limited himself to what Franklin wrote and did publicly, and his book works perfectly as introduction, or re-introduction.

Morgan says that Franklin is hard to know, in part, because "it is so hard to distinguish his natural impulses from his principles." For a focus on his main endeavors, however, especially his political ones, this biography does very well. Those who think all the founding fathers were firebrands insisting on independence at the first unfair tax will learn that Franklin was England's passionate friend. He wanted America and England to stay together and was reluctant to admit that Parliament was not going to change its ways. Although he had had many friends in Britain, the government did not value him at all. Philadelphians and Americans in general had a closer idea of his original genius. But it was in France that he encountered public adulation from all levels. John Adams preferred more traditional power games, and disliked the French lionization of Franklin as a hero and saint. (Adams really had his vanity bruised; he said that Franklin's life in France was "a Scene of continual Discipation.") Franklin did not like controversy; he thought polemics were wasted energy. He did not join a church (although he was a joiner) for like most of the best-remembered Founding Fathers, Franklin was not a Christian but a deist who, as befits his practical views, knew that gaining morality and virtue was the important thing, and the means by which they are gained (which some said could only be by Christianity) was no matter at all. This was heresy to the religious revival of the time that said faith was everything.

Living with virtue was important, but living usefully was Franklin's great aim. (He also aimed to have fun; long after he had retired from the printing business, for as long as he could physically manage the difficult press machines, he remained his own printer, issuing his sly jokes and bagatelles.) It is hard to imagine anyone who achieved an aim of utility more fully. This volume reports mostly on his political usefulness to the new nation, but almost all aspects of his life were committed to making improvements. His classic _Autobiography_ is a record of self improvement, but it is obviously written with the aim of providing means and an example for the improvements of others. His scientific endeavors were not just theoretical sallies; they produced lightning rods and fireplaces that benefited humanity the world over. His founding of a volunteer corps of firefighters and of a public library are legendary. Concentrating on his political thought and social endeavors, Morgan's book is an attractive introduction to one of the brightest and most lovable minds ever.

Edmund S. Morgan is without a doubt one of American's greatest living historians. He is very worthy of the title, as is made evident in the pages of Benjamin Franklin. Morgan manages to give a very insightful look at one of the most interesting Founding Fathers in a book half the size of most Franklin biographies. As Gordon S. Wood wrote on the back cover of the book, "This is the best short biography of Franklin ever written". You would be hard pressed to disagree with him.

You take certain themes from this well written book. One is a total admiration of the man. This is a very subject positive story, as it should be. Franklin was extremely smart, not some storied tinkerer in lightning. Franklin's experiments were recognized world wide as serious steps in scientific achievement. He could speak several languages and was a veracious reader and writer. He also had a wonderful sense of civic duty. It seemed that wherever he went, Franklin strove to improve his surroundings, for himself and his neighbors. Libraries and fire departments all owe some of their origin to Franklin.

The man was also extremely charming. On his many trips around the world, he cultivated an almost cult like following. He was such a friendly fellow that people from all around the globe did anything to get an audience or share a meal with him. Franklin's infidelities are hinted at, but they are not sorid or outrageous. Most of them are unproven anyway.

Only trailing Washington, Franklin should be given the most credit for the independence of the 13 colonies and then the formation of the United States. Franklin managed to squeeze millions and millions of dollars from the already cash strapped French, with later on proved disastrous for Louis XVI. This money and aid was a necessity in winning the war. Also very interesting is how much Franklin loved England. Up until the very end, Franklin was desperate to keep the two countries together in some form of union. Only after the amazingly arrogant actions of the English government did he see that the only answer was independence.

Great writing, wonderful research, and a fascinating subject. What else could you want?

I read this book many years ago for an American Literature class and am now rereading it for an American History class. I enjoyed it the first time and am enjoying it now. The writing is fluid, entertaining; the points made are profound. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Winthrop and the early Puritan immigrants--a quick, pleasurable read.

The impact of the Puritans on America is fascinating. The world has thrown millions of immigrants onto American shores over the centuries, but those millions have never quite diluted out the foundational impact of those 20,000 that came during the great migration. Regrettably, most Americans are not born again, but because the founders of New England were biblically minded people, the United States has inherited the ideals of family values, education, care for the less fortunate, accountability in governnment, liberty of conscience, reward for hard work and honest business dealings. Among the nations, we still stand as a beacon of hope because of these ideals. God used a few people fully devoted to His Word to do marvelous works and a wonder.
How exciting it is to watch the mind of Winthrop wrestle with the same issues that modern Christians wrestle with-how to best be salt and light TO the world without being OF the world. His response was to build a city on a hill, a New Jerusalem, a holy priesthood--and the world has never been the same.

Edmund Morgan was an excellent writer, and it shows through in this book.