| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

John Ferling. Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. Pp. xxiv, 392. $30.00.

John Ferling tracks the careers of three leading revolutionaries in this entertaining history of the American Revolution. Having already written fine biographies of George Washington and John Adams, Ferling had at first intended to give Thomas Jefferson equal treatment. But Ferling says he jettisoned this project as he came to see the virtues of a comparative approach. The truth is, Jefferson simply did not measure up. 1

For Washington, the Revolution was "the chance of a lifetime to capture enduring fame" (p. 107), and Adams saw in it "the opportunity for an individual to achieve whatever his merit could earn" (p. 123). But the "sybaritic" and "reclusive" Jefferson was a much more reluctant revolutionary: he already "seemed to have everything that he had ever desired" (p. 54). Jefferson's wartime record shows him to have been "the least committed to service and sacrifice" of Ferling's three subjects, "the least capable of fully and adequately filling the great offices he held" (p. 303). Whatever their failings—and Washington certainly failed often enough on the battlefield—Washington and Adams both "achieved historical greatness" (p. 306). Through "their unflagging and altruistic dedication to the long struggle for independence" they formed the Revolution's "bedrock" (p. 304). . . .

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