America Declares Independence

Rating:
Summary: Deplorable History
Review: Alan Dershowitz has really outdone himself this time. Although it is true that the "Nature's God" of the Declaration of Independence is not the god of the Bible, and that Jefferson was a Deist,is true overall this book is awful. The most telling feature of this book is Dershowitz's politically correct deconstructionist attack on the concept of natural rights and his assault on Thomas Jefferson.

Dershowitz ridicules the concept of people being born with inherent rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". he believes rights are "man made" and have no sacred meaning. He trashed the Declaration's author in the typical modern bolshevik manner by applying the standards of the 21st century to the 18th. He clearly sets out to demolish natural law and the entire tradition of Anglo American libertarian ideals of which Thomas Jefferson was a subscriber. It is amazing that a man like Dershowitz can be so brazen and hypocritical in his evaluation of Jefferson. Dershowitz, critical of Jefferson on slavery, supports "torturing" terrorist suspects, and is a rabid supporter of Isreali despotism in the Middle East.

This book show how degenerate the entire history profession has become and how any evaluation of our Founding should be viewed with a jaundiced eye. Overall a horrible piece of nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: A Clear View
Review: Dershowitz has some interesting ideas, but does not flesh them out as fully as he could (especially in the first third of the book, focusing on the religious origins of the Declaration). All too often, instead of taking a full quote from Jefferson or Adams and interpreting it, he borrows a few words from some other historian's characterization of what Jefferson thought. As a result, this book is likely to persuade only those who already agree with him; I sense that the publishers made him finish this book a bit too quickly.

But Dershowitz's dissection of natural law in the second half of the book is a little more persuasive, because he relies on logic rather than on inadequate research.

Rating:
Summary: America Did Not Just Happen
Review: I second the motion in the review of Aug. 19, 2003, "A good idea -- but hardley original", that Alan Dershowitz could have put his incredible talents to even further use by laying out the philosophy of history behind America's founding, and examining and explaining how America did not just happen, but is the result of a long evolution of blood, sweat, tears, and suffering for freedom. But, that is not to take away from the fact that "America Declares Independence" is very well written, very interesting, and very much a 5 star book. It comes to you highly recommended by this reader. And, if you value my recommendation, I would also recommend that, after you read Mr. Dershowitz's book, read Norman Thomas Remick's book, "West Point: Character Leadership Education, A Book Developed From The Readings And Writings Of Thomas Jefferson", a book that does explain how America did not just happen, but was the result of a long evolution of blood, sweat, tears, and suffering for freedom.

Rating:
Summary: Declare Your Independence!
Review: In his monograph America Declares Independence, Alan Dershowitz wrests our country's founding document from the clutches of right-wing fundagelicals who want to turn the Declaration of Independence into a call for a born-again America. Thomas Jefferson, a deist, was the primary author of the Declaration, and his God was the God of Newton and the Enlightenment. The most conservative members of the Continental Congress, such as the Calvinists, wouldn't have recognized the God of the modern fundamentalists. And, Heaven forbid, there were Unitarians and Quakers who voted on the Declaration, too! Dershowitz also holds forth on the meaning [if any] of natural law and tries to untangle the confusing persona of a man who could write the Declaration AND own slaves. If you are interested in finding out how the secular nation founded by the Founding Fathers could become the most religiously diverse nation on the planet [and include fundamentalists who have the right to believe in and speak of a so-called Christian nation of the Founding Fathers], America Declares Independence would be a good place to start.

Rating:
Summary: A Clear View
Review: Many may not agree with what this author has to say, but as an historian, I think he has done a superb job delineating the true origins and motivations that went into the writing of America's founding documents. this is an excelent resource to have around if you are confronting right wing fundamentalists who think God founded America.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting book
Review: One the most difficult things to figure out when examining the life of Thomas Jefferson is why he could write such powerful documents, full of respect for human life and human dignity, and still own, at one period of his life, 267 slaves. The author of this book attempts to explain and conjecture his reasons for this, and other things of more relevance to the present time. The author's main emphasis is to negate an idea held in his view by the "Religious Right", namely that the United States is a "Christian country" and was intended to be so by the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He does so successfully, and gives ample historical references for his arguments. However, individuals like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson cannot be said to represent the entire "Religious Right", even if they claim to, and even if this claim is imputed to them by the author. And further, even though the author has refuted their arguments about the Christian nature of the founding documents, this still does not refute the claim that the United States "should" be a Christian nation. The "Religious Right"could perhaps acknowledge the arguments of the author as true and then consequently advocate the founding documents be rejected and a Christian nation be formed. This has not been suggested yet by the "Religious Right" (that I have heard), but could be in the near future. Religion and toleration are usually immiscible, and if backed into a corner, religion has throughout history proven itself extremely dangerous and has exhibited brutality going beyond all rational bounds.

Rating:
Summary: A good idea -- but hardly original
Review: This could have been a great book, as one certainly expects from Alan Dershowitz; unfortunately, it reflects the American belief that democracy was invented here rather than realizing this country is part of a long evolution of freedom.

Dershowitz, a renowned Harvard law school professor and frequent commentator on individual rights, wastes most of his effort refuting, rejecting and attacking the Religious Right rather than understanding such people are the bell weather of American freedom. He doesn't seem to understand the impact of the Religious Right (or the Radical Left) is in inverse proportion to the level of freedom in this or any other country -- as the absolute rule of the Taliban religious extremists certainly proved in Afghanistan.

However, zealots exist in very society. Perhaps they counterbalance each other; if they become part of the Establishment, they crimp the freedom of everyone. Dershowitz uses the massive artillery of his intellect to attack the limited acumen of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Alan Keyes -- as if Justice Louis Brandeis would have been profitably employed attacking Father Coughlin.

Dershowitz doesn't seem to understand that freedom and individual rights have constantly evolved in Anglo society for more than a thousand years. Democracy wasn't invented when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, cribbing many ideas from the English Bill of Rights written in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Freedom and democracy is a constant and uneven struggle, not an accident or gift .

The Declaration of Independence was a quantum leap forward in defining some basic ideas of freedom, but it was not the end of the process. Before 1776, American colonists had legitimate complaints; the Thirteen Colonies were run by the English Colonial office, part of the executive branch of government. Colonists were ruled by King George III and his bureaucrats, instead of their own elected officials.

In response, the colonists said, in effect, "We're Englishmen. We have an absolute right to be represented in Parliament." If their rights were denied, according to the Bill of Rights of 1688, they had a right to overthrow the government. As Englishmen brought up with the Bill of Rights, the Declaration asserted their most basic rights.

Out of that came The United States of America, with a Constitution written to clearly avoid problems which led to the Declaration of Independence. Dershowitz recognizes the idea that freedom evolves in a society; his weakness is thinking there was an immaculate birth of freedom in America in 1776. He doesn't understand the Declaration of Independence was a bold and perfectly legitimate assertion of the basic rights of every free Englishman -- and from this a new form of "Democracy in America" (to use Alexis de Tocqueville's phrase) evolved.

There are two elements in society: a view that people are basically evil and must be restrained for their own good, as represented by the likes of Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton and the current Bush administration. The countering view says people are basically good and must be free of as many social restraints as feasible, as represented by Rousseau, Voltaire and Thomas Paine and the usual Democratic politicians.

Either view, if carried to the extremes of a Father Coughlin or Alan Keyes, or the excesses of the French or Russian revolutions, destroys our freedoms.

Yet, history shows an uneven but very real expansion of human freedom. When freedom is limited, the response in 1775 was the shot heard round the world; today, the response is often footsteps that cross half the world to find freedom.

This screed by Dershowitz is a rant against the Religious Right. His recognized talents would have been much better used to examine and explain the English origins of the Declaration, rather than bashing baleful bigots who are mostly irrelevant in a free society.

All in all, perhaps a useful book to demolish straw devils; but, it could have been immeasurably better with a different approach.