Communications

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

To the Editor:

In his review of my Britons in the Ottoman Empire, Rifa'at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj misrepresents several of my arguments [AHR 104 (April 1999): 538–39]. He wonders what I expect the reader to get out of a partially empirical narrative about Englishmen living on the frontiers of the Ottoman world. The answer is simple. I believe that until historians of the Ottoman Empire, such as he and I, insert personalities and people into our writings and use them to examine and test the formations and structures of the Ottoman world, our texts, narrative or otherwise, will lack the animation and sense of reality that might entice non-Ottoman historians to engage them. I certainly did not expect any reader to conclude from this narrative, as the reviewer seems to have done, that English residents would turn petty and venal "like the Ottomans." To the contrary, my argument is that exposure to Ottoman civilization made the Briton and other western European visitors more just and more receptive to difference, in other words, less petty and less venal.

     The reviewer reads Britons in other unexpected ways. For example, he first avows that I do not engage Robert Brenner's Merchants and Revolution, then two sentences later implies that I do engage the work, but wrongly. Which is it? He also asserts that I criticize Brenner's analysis for not situating overseas merchants in the struggle between parliament and monarch, whereas I mean to argue something quite different—that the English Levant Company's anti-royalist ambassadorial and consular nominees and appointments in the 1640s testify that this particular organization was not nearly so royalist as Brenner argues. Nor do I understand the reviewer's contention that I do not compare English and Ottoman societies. My first chapter, "The Proto-Imperialist," examines the methodological pitfalls of ignoring Ottoman civilization in studies of early modern English expansion; my second chapter, "The Englishman and the Ottoman Other," ventures that very "comparison between English and Ottoman societies" that the reviewer declares I never undertake; and my third chapter, "Three English Settlements," attempts to situate individual Englishmen in a diverse and plastic Ottoman world, and show how they engaged with it.

     I find particularly disturbing Abou-El-Haj's detachment of individual words from my text to make it seem Orientalist, and especially his claim that Britons employs the word "Turk" anachronistically, for I consciously avoid such usage. The expression by necessity occurs in the book, for the English routinely referred to Ottomans as "Turks" and the Ottoman polity as "Turkey." Nevertheless, I challenge the reviewer to find one instance outside of direct quotation where I refer to Ottoman statesmen as "Turks," the Ottoman world as "Turkish," or the Ottoman Empire as "Turkey." I also would direct the reader to my notes, where I argue, in a discussion of another book, that these terms "did not even exist in the early modern Ottoman mind" (p. 224 n. 18), almost the reviewer's very words.

     Finally, it is ironic that in an issue of the AHR that contains a forum on the "New British History," the reviewer chooses not even to mention that one of Britons' principal purposes is to argue for the inclusion of the Ottomans in the New British historians' vision.

Daniel Goffman

Ball State University

R. A. Abou-El-Haj replies:

Daniel Goffman opted to celebrate the efficacies of narrative as providing the "animation and sense of reality that might entice non-Ottoman historians to engage them." And with his emphasis on narrative, he thus tries to deflect from my sense that his work has shown that under the Ottoman umbrella "English residents would turn petty and venal 'like the Ottomans.'" A rereading of my review would indicate that most of it was devoted to addressing some of the new demands posed by comparative history. Had Goffman taken up that challenge, we would have had a fruitful exchange. Instead, I find myself questioning the intellectual efficacy of publishing this book.

R. A. Abou-El-Haj

State University of New York, Binghamton

To the Editor:

I wish to point out misrepresentations made by Carl J. Richard when he reviewed my book Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy and Theology (1998) in the American Historical Review, June 1999 [899–900].

     My work is an intellectual history study of the political thought of Thomas Jefferson limited to ideas related to the Declaration (pp. 6–7). It is not "a thorough examination" of Jefferson's "philosophical sources," as Richard suggests.

     Although I examined more of Jefferson's intellectual sources related to the Declaration than Carl Becker, Morton White, or Garry Wills, I excluded the Stoic theory of knowledge and ideas of Epicurus. Richard criticized this, stating that Jefferson copied Stoic writings before 1776. However, he did not copy Stoic epistemology, and his praise of Epicurus came much later than 1776.

     A statement I made in the preface—misquoted by Richard—was egregiously misrepresented. There I mentioned Jefferson's influence on James Madison to guarantee religious freedom with federal law by adding a bill of rights to the Constitution, which included the right of religious freedom. I stated, "I cannot help speculating—given the religious authoritarianism and sectarian bigotry that existed in the colonies in 1776 and have not been altogether eradicated today—that without the efforts of Jefferson and others, especially Madison, to establish the First Amendment to the Constitution, we could [misquoted as 'would'] have become another Bosnia, Northern Ireland, or Middle East." This statement is on legal restraint of religious bigotry. It does not deny a culture of religious tolerance or say tolerance was fully and quickly accepted here because of eloquence. Indeed, it specifies religious tolerance has never been fully accepted here. Yet Richard maintains "Jayne gives the false impression that religious tolerance was an idea without any historical or cultural foundation in America yet was fully accepted there within a short time, presumably because of the eloquence of a few great sages like Jefferson."

     Then, in a comment irrelevant to my statement and book, Richard erroneously maintained that "orthodox Christians like Roger Williams and the Quakers . . . first developed the idea of separation of church and state." He also erroneously stated that I characterized "American theology as antidemocratic," when it was Jefferson who did this. Moreover, his inferential logic that American Christianity was democratic because of "the crucial role played by ministers in fomenting the American Revolution" is fallacious. Many patriot ministers maintained that they or the authority of their church were better able to supply the moral direction of the state than the populace, which they deemed morally tainted as a result of original sin and thereby incompetent for this task. Significantly, some ministers in revolutionary America instructed their congregations on how to vote. Jefferson feared such clerical moral authority in politics—still active in America—could result in a de facto clerical aristocracy or oligarchy. That would vitiate the Declaration's Lockean democracy based on the moral capacity of individuals comprising the populace to determine the moral direction of the state independent of church, scripture, and clergy.

     Nor did Jefferson escape misrepresentation. Richard said he "believed in a Resurrection at the end of time, followed by divine judgment." This smacks of Christian metaphysical doctrine clearly rejected by Jefferson.

     In a particularly distorting omission, Richard stated, "Allen Jayne leaves no doubt that the 'Nature's God' found in the Declaration . . . is the rationalist God of deism, not the personal God of Abraham." He should have added "and especially not the personal God of Christianity," since a principal theme of my book is that the Declaration's politics is driven by deism.

     Richard even stated, "Jayne is too inclined to take at face value the claim of Jefferson and the deists to objectivity in deducing a more rational God from nature." Oh, please! I did not judge, I merely presented Jefferson's and the deists' claim.

     Richard finally maintained that I did not give a "fair and accurate comparison of Jefferson's views with those of contemporary Christians." Jefferson scholar Garrett Ward Sheldon put it differently: "This is an original, persuasive and important study that puts the new theology of Locke and Jefferson in the context of traditional Judeo-Christian thought while illuminating the points of difference between the two."

     Since Richard's review contains many misrepresentations, I respectfully request that this letter be printed in the AHR.

Allen Jayne

Santa Monica, California

Carl J. Richard replies:

First, I wish to apologize to Allen Jayne for misquoting his statement regarding America and Bosnia. It was an inexcusable error. However, at the risk of sounding sarcastic, I honestly believe that the cause of my transcription error was shock at finding such preposterous hyperbole in a work of serious history published by a reputable press.

     Second, Jayne writes that I erred in claiming that he "characterized 'American theology as antidemocratic,' when it was Jefferson who did this." To borrow Jayne's own (albeit adolescent) phrase: oh, please. Anyone who reads Jefferson's Declaration of Independence will see that the incompatibility of orthodox Christianity with democracy is the central theme of the whole book. Why Jayne should now seek to distance himself from the clearly and candidly expressed theme of his own book is quite perplexing.

     Indeed, elements of that theme remain even in Jayne's letter. Witness his specious argument that colonial American Christianity was antidemocratic because ministers sometimes engaged in political advocacy. Does this mean that Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, and other civil rights leaders were behaving in an antidemocratic manner when they engaged in political advocacy? Jayne's idea of democracy seems to be that the clergy alone should be stripped of the right of political free speech.

     His argument regarding original sin is equally specious. The concept of original sin is a double-edged sword. Yes, it can be used to limit popular power, but it can also be used to limit the power of authority. Early American Christians understood quite well that their government officials and clergymen were as human, and thus as fully prone to sin, as they themselves were. Hence one possible deduction from the doctrine of original sin is that no one, not even a clergyman, should be trusted with excessive power. It is arguable that this deduction has had more force in American history than the interpretation upon which Jayne insists. In any case, Jayne should not write as though there is only one way of thinking about this complex subject.

     Third, not only is Jayne incorrect in denying that Jefferson believed in a future resurrection followed by an afterlife of rewards and punishments, but, quite frankly, it is baffling to me that Jayne could write a fairly good book on Jefferson's religious views and somehow remain unaware of that fact. Jefferson's belief in the afterlife was one of the most constant of his religious opinions. He claimed that since virtue was not always rewarded in this life, divine justice demanded some "future state of rewards and punishments." Indeed, he considered the doctrine of the resurrection one of Jesus' greatest "improvements" on Judaism (not realizing that such a doctrine had arisen as early as the Book of Daniel). While space limitations prohibit me from providing full documentation, here are some supporting letters: Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800, and April 21, 1803; Jefferson to William Canby, September 18, 1813; Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822; and Jefferson to Augustus B. Woodward, March 24, 1824. Although Jefferson did not share the orthodox Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead, he did draw from Christianity the belief in a future resurrection and afterlife for all of humanity.

     Fourth, Jayne is incorrect in claiming that Jefferson copied nothing regarding classical epistemology before 1776. His commonplace book contained a lengthy philosophical passage from Cicero that combined elements of Stoic epistemology with Epicurean corporealism.

     Finally, I find the spectacle of Jayne quoting his own favorable reviews unspeakably sad. We have all received favorable reviews, as well as unfavorable reviews, so what is the point? One would never glean from Jayne's letter that my review was a qualified endorsement of his book. I argued then, and still believe now, that the book's strengths—its clear, concise, and accurate (though not entirely complete) account of Jefferson's philosophical and religious views—make it well worth reading. If Jayne cannot tolerate anything short of unqualified praise, then, for the sake of his own peace of mind, he may wish to consider a less contentious profession.

Carl J. Richard

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

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