Reviewed by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 61.3

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Reviewed by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 61.3 | The History Cooperative

Reviews of Books

Celebrating the Founders

To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders. By Bernard Bailyn. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. Pp. xiv, 185. $26.00.) A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic. By John Ferling. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xviii, 558. $30.00.) Reviewed by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy , University of Virginia
There is a significant revival of interest, reverence, and admiration for the leadership of the Revolutionary generation reflected in the spate of recent best-selling biographies by David McCulloch, Joseph Ellis, Walter Isaacson, Edmund Morgan, Gore Vidal, and Gordon Wood. The very titles of the two works considered in this review celebrate the creativity and genius of the founders in constructing a novel, enduring, and stable system of government against a background of uncertainty when "nothing was assured" (Bailyn, p. 5). Bernard Bailyn marvels that "the creative reorganization of the world of power and all its implications has happened at various points in history, but rarely, if ever, I believe, as quickly, as successfully, and—so it seems to me—as mysteriously as by a single generation on the eastern shores of North America, two hundred years ago" (p. 4).	1
Despite their common celebratory theme, there are nevertheless important differences in the sophistication and perspective of these accounts. Bailyn is thematic in his approach, with a series of five lively analytical essays that, although testifying to "the accomplishments of this extraordinar y generation," also probe "the ambiguities, uncertainties, and perplexities of what they did—difficulties that persist into our own time" (p. x). His first essay situates the Revolutionaries on the margins of empire and argues that the very provincialism of the setting stimulated their imaginations and creativity. It caused them to be alienated "from the higher sources of metropolitan culture or from the familiar local environment" and to have a consequent tendency "to shake their minds from the roots of habit and tradition" (p. 31). Bailyn has alluded to this theme in earlier essays, but this first chapter represents his most cogent reflection on the subject; here he also makes impressive use of visual material, including contemporary paintings and architecture, to reinforce his argument.	2
In much of the recent, adulatory writings on the founders, Thomas Jefferson often emerges unfavorably; Conor Cruise O'Brien postulated that he would have admired Pol Pot.¹ Bailyn's second essay is much more sympathetic to Jefferson. He partly attributes such negative assessments to the seeming inconsistencies in his policies, behavior, and character. Bailyn gives an excellent and concise summary of these contradictions, but they do not lead him to the now-fashionable imputation that Jefferson was a sphinx. Rather, he was a "a natural politician and an industrious, efficient administrator" (p. 46) who "sought in every way he could to contain the real world in the embrace of his utopian ideals" (p. 52). The difficulty of balancing radical idealism with practical realities was the essence of his dilemma and explains the complexities of his public career. Thus, "Jefferson more than any other of the Revolution's original leaders explored the ambiguities of freedom" (p. 59). The struggle between Revolutionary idealism and political realities is also the theme of Bailyn's third chapter on Benjamin Franklin. For Bailyn, part of the genius of the Revolutionary generation was its pragmatism: "America's great historical moments—and the establishment of the nation's independence was the greatest of all—have occurred when realism and idealism have been combined, and no one knew this better than Franklin" (p. 67). In this sparkling essay, Bailyn reviews the ways Franklin manipulated his image to achieve diplomatic successes in France. The discussion of the problem of balancing idealism and realism is a useful reminder that politicians necessarily make tradeoffs, but it still leaves open the charges of hypocrisy in Jefferson and cynical deviousness in Franklin.	. . .

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