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Peter C. Mancall, The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire. By Francis Jennings. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xii, 340 pp. Cloth, $54.95, isbn 0-521-66255-9. Paper, $19.95, isbn 0-521-66481-0.), Journal of American History, Volume 88, Issue 3, December 2001, Pages 1058–1059, https://doi.org/10.2307/2700422
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Most academic books advance a single argument. Not this one. Francis Jennings, who died last year, first aimed to provide a history of the AngloAmerican experience, with particular attention to the American Revolution and its consequences. But he also aimed for another target: a group of historians whose interpretations of the American past, and particularly the Revolution, missed what he believed was the prime outcome of the struggle.
The first part of the book provides an overview of the colonization of the mainland colonies. As the author of a number of previous books on the early American experience, Jennings came to this task as an expert. Unfortunately, his research skills in this book were not as strong as in his earlier efforts; the majority of citations in these first chapters are to secondary sources, many to his own work, and the argument does not reflect much relevant current scholarship.
The heart of the book deals with the Revolution and various historians' efforts to describe it. Jennings's goal in these chapters was to show how the Revolution, rather than freeing all individuals to pursue happiness, was yet another episode in the longrunning effort of Americans of European origin to conquer nonEuropeans. At times, his analysis hits the mark; he notes, for example, that in “measurable terms of life and property, the Revolution cost Indians more than it took from any other ethnic group.” That point is not exactly revolutionary, but it is still significant. Not all AngloAmericans were evil, of course, and Jennings show sympathy for some groups of colonists, notably Quakers. But more frequently he spends his time either attacking some of the Founders such as Thomas Jefferson or attacking historians who have depicted the Revolution as a “fairy tale.” He reserves particular spite for scholars who have failed to see in the American experience a great social conflict and for those “who have screamed in rage at revolutionaries in their own time.”
