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Title: Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic by Joanne B. Freeman ISBN: 0-300-09755-7 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.08 (13 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Wonderful, amusing and a vastly entertaining read
Comment: If you have read enough books on early American politics it begins to appear redundant, that there isn't really any new areas that haven't been discovered. Joanne Freeman shows this simply isn't true by presenting an entirely original framework to understanding early American politics. Freeman presents an argument that early politics is best understood within a overarching framework of personal honor; that the political elites of the day operated within a traditional and highly regimented system of honor that controlled thier political actions. Freeman examines this system through a variety of case studies of the uses of gossip, paper, and dueling within the system and ends with a discussion of the 1800 election. While her arguments is strong, I'm not convinced that all of her claims necessarily hold water. But the best part of this book is that a new perspective is shown and that even heavily researched areas of history still have unexplored potential. I highly recomend this book for many reasons, not the least of which is it dispells the myth that the founders were above partisian politics. Freeman presents a picture of politics that is every bit as dirty and nasty as modern day, albeit for different reasons.
Rating: 4
Summary: Their Sacred Honor
Comment: This is a groundbreaking work that will be sure to change how we think about the revolutionary and postrevolutionary generations. In Affairs of Honor, Joanne Freeman illuminates the importance of the forgotten cultural force of honor among the Founding Fathers and the generations immediately following the revolutionary generation.
She proves her thesis admirably, and has chosen fascinating examples of how honor and its related values of fame and virtue were driving forces for their behavior. She demonstrates that through the prism of honor we can better understand behavior that we now find puzzling, having lost to history the central importance of the demands of honor upon our early leaders. Incidentally, she notes the relative paucity of historic sources during this period in American history, but argues convincingly that the influence of the code of honor, once recognized, appear everywhere in the documents of the time. She tells her story convincingly through the journals, diaries, and papers of politicians, pamphlets, newspapers and other historical documents, as well as through the histories crafted by Jefferson and Burr which she argues convincingly were written above all to defend their actions and their honor.
If it is true that every history book rewrites history, Affairs of Honor does so more than most. By exploring the complex interplay and shifting meanings of honor among the founding generation and how the code influenced understandings and misunderstandings among early lawmakers, she shows that the correct observance the cultural code was often more important than the actual programs and laws that were under consideration. For instance, even if a senator may have agreed with a proposal of Hamilton's, the fact that many considered his behavior to be dishonorable, might sway their vote against the proposal. (Notably, some of the battles about honor stretched forward through families for generations afterwards). To make it even more difficult and confusing, there were different kinds of honor as well - southern honor as practiced by the Virginians and other southern states, and as practiced by Northerners. (The code of Southern honor more often ended in duels than did the Northern interpretation). She notes that before political parties had platforms which enabled a politician to defend his voting as part of his party's requirement of him, each voting decision had to be defended on a personal level. The personal level was the level of honor, and thus a man's vote could be called into question on the basis of honor - sometimes resulting in bloodshed. Honor was sometimes used as a weapon in elections, too. Sometimes politicians would charge each other with dishonorable behavior just before an election so that the their opponents could not respond in time.
Contradictions between democracy and the culture of honor abound. While the founding fathers were "republicans," they were also "men of honor," a sometimes paralyzing combination. As republicans, they needed to demonstrate their allegiance with the citizens whom they represented, while in the chambers of government, they needed to pledge their lives, and their sacred "honor" to each other - the code of honor of the "aristocrat." In a classic example, she notes that in the story of the clothing G. Washington's wore for his inauguration, that Washington was conscious of and tried to balance these the conflicting demands, wearing a American made homespun suit but a suit of the finest homespun, coupled with the fancy buckles from France on his shoes.
She clearly shows that in this face-to-face culture, everyone was painfully conscious of the image they wished to project. Since man's reputation was critical to his success or lack of it in early government, much time is spent defending one's honor and questioning the honor and virtue of others. One chose one's enemies as carefully as one chose one's friends. Jefferson was a master of using the code of honor to advance his agenda, dirtying his enemies through intermediaries in the press. Adams, by contrast, was temperamentally too volatile to use the code of honor as subtly as his old friend Jefferson.
Overall, a great insight into the founding fathers, and into early American history.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good look at the early republic
Comment: Oftentimes, we lament the existence of political parties and see them as the source of all evil in the country. Freeman's book takes a look at 1790s America, when parties did not yet truly exist, and finds that it was not much better.
Some of the material here I have read in different form elsewhere, but there is also a lot of new stuff too. In particular, the different methods of attacking political opponents were new to me.
Just as we often bemoan the existence of parties, we also sometimes complain about the lack of shame in today's society (as shown through reality TV, etc.). This book also shows the flip side of this, to an era when honor and self-respect are deemed so important that even slight insults can lead to canings and duels.
Freeman does a good job at showing a political world that is quite different than our own. If not perfect, this book is still good enough to recommend to anyone interested in the early history of the United States.
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Title: The Politics of Individualism: Parties and the American Character in the Jacksonian Era by Lawrence Frederick Kohl ISBN: 0195067819 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: February, 1991 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West by William Cronon ISBN: 0393308731 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 1992 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans by Joyce Oldham Appleby ISBN: 0674006631 Publisher: Belknap Pr Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic by Jeanne Boydston ISBN: 0195085612 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: January, 1994 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia by Woody Holton ISBN: 0807847844 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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