Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776

Rating:
Summary: Very good--delightful to read
Review: In this gracefully written book, Jon Butler in Becoming America "traces the enormous social, economic, political, and cultural changes that created a distinctively modern and, ultimately, "American" society in Britain's mainland colonies between 1680 and 1770." (2) With straightforward prose refreshingly free of jargon, Butler shows that the American colonies developed into surprisingly modern entities by the eve of the Revolution. In separate chapters, he details five major characteristics of American modernity in support of this claim: ethnic and national diversity; complex economies; "large-scale participatory politics"; religious pluralism; and "the modern penchant for power, control, and authority" over both their environment and other human beings. This change from primitive 17th century outposts of Britain's colonial empire to "complex and variegated" (3) colonies by the mid 18th century is what Butler terms the "Revolution before 1776."
By 1770, America was anything but a homogeneous society in terms of its population, particularly when compared to Europe. Butler notes that Indians and Europeans "lived side by side" (15) in most rural areas of the colonies. Religious, economic and cultural strife forced many in Europe to immigrate to the British mainland colonies, while after 1680 the American colonies "became a haven for non-English Europeans." (20) Butler points to a variety of newcomers-Jews, Scots-Irish, French Huguenots, Germans and Swiss-who settled all over America to make the New World a mix of ethnic groups, which "predicted the growing importance of ethnicity in America" which continues to the present. (25) Butler also details the "horrific suffering" of Africans, forced to America by the burgeoning slave trade at the end of the 17th century. Writing sensitively about the plight of these enslaved blacks, he also notes that their influx "recast the seventeenth-century colonies and [became] the American future." (36)
Not only was America's population diverse, so was its religious composition. "Colonial American religion," Butler concludes, was "varied and rich between 1680s and the American Revolution." (185) This "religious pluralism and vitality," far more extensive than was characteristic of Europe, has been "identified as the very soul of modern American culture" he concludes. Butler also points to ministers like George Whitefield as being modern, in their celebrity status, individualism and "nondenominational, media-conscious[ness]."
Butler points to the diverse and complex economies of the British colonies in America as evidence of their modernity, though he is careful not to ignore the growing poverty and inequality in New World.. Colonists "took command" of their commercial life and shaped it into a "notably autonomous economy," (51) especially in their agricultural pursuits, in which farming became more commercial after the 1680s. This new emphasis on the market was accompanied by diversification. Similarly, Butler shows that native Americans too "became enmeshed in complex and powerful economic relationships" with Europeans in the colonies. (67) Merchants won "wealth and status" through expansion, extension and specialization," (69) all of which demonstrate for Butler that colonial economics were modern and complex.
Colonial politics, Butler concludes, were "so complex that they often baffled observers." (90) Provincial politics, while not democratic, were popular and included that formation of "political groups that sometimes assumed almost modern, partylike appearances," (96) such as the Quaker party which emerged in Pennsylvania in the 1740s. America after 1680 became less deferential and became a "more open, ultimately democratic nation." (99) Butler also points to the maturation of provincial assemblies after 1680 and the expansion of their power to demonstrate an increasing modernity of colonial politics.
In Becoming America, Jon Butler has convincingly depicted British America from 1680 to 1770 as a place in which the colonies were becoming more modern, diverse and complex. Yet some of his evidence does not point to modernity at all. Although he vividly depicts the cultural and religious holocaust suffered by Africans upon their forced immigration to America, perhaps Butler should have made more out of the meaning of this labor system. "American colonists made modern American slavery," he writes, "they did not inherit it." (42) True enough; but they also slit noses, cut ankle cords, gelded and sold slaves far away from their kin. Butler holds that slavery was a "distinctively modern institution," (42) but readers may wonder if a society that sustains such barbarity through 1770 and beyond can truly be defined as modern.
This is a far better book than Jack Greene's misfire, Pursuits of Happiness.

Rating:
Summary: Very good--delightful to read
Review: Jon Butler's "Becoming America" offers a new perspective on revolution. Instead of arguing for the conservatism or the radicalism of the American revolution, Butler argues that there was a fundamental revolution in practices before 1776. In Butler's opinion the years 1680 to 1770 saw a revolutionary transformatiion in which the American colonies became modern in five major ways: ethnic diversity, modern market economies, modern participatory politics, modern consumerism and religious pluralism. (2) The relationship of this silent revolution to 1776 was very complex, but it could be said that "the American Revolution of 1763-1789 can rightly be called the first modern revolution, THE model for the French Revolution of 1789 and subseqently" onwards. (227)

In many ways this is a fine introduction to pre-1776 America. Butler is concise and his use of the secondary literature is very thorough. Problems, however, start with his chapter on ethnic diversity (8-49). For a start ethnic diversity is not a hallmark of modernity. The fact that more than 90% of Japan and Korea are of the same ethnic group does not make them less "modern" than India or Indonesia. Butler also underplays America's linguistic uniformity, where English among whites was overwhelming, in contrast to still Gaelic Ireland and still Welsh Wales. Actually the most modern thing about America's population was not its diversity but the rise of international migration, a process whose causes Butler says relatively little (22-23, 29). His discussuion of the African-American experience leads to another problem. His account of 18th century slavery (36-49), slave poverty (86-88, 136, 139-40) and slave religion (215-24) is based on the most thorough and recent research. Yet it is segregated from the larger American experience, as if slavery was something that only happened to black people, and not to the larger society as a whole. In other words, it is insufficiently dialectical (the same goes for Butler's view of women).

What about the modernity of the American economy? Butler has no clear account of demography, even though the American colonies had the fastest population growth rate in the world. White Americans were easily the most prosperous people in the world and Butler is quite right to note their superior literacy (111) and healthier diet (134-38). On the other hand America was 5% urban, compared to 20% for pre-revolutionary France and higher still for England. Butler offers many examples of American modernity, such as the booming power of merchants (68-74), the growth of public buildings (164-70), the rise of literary clubs and freemasonry (174-84). But these were largely urban affairs. What about the vast rural majority? Although many have viewed pre-1776 America as a hub a capitalism, in one important way it was not. 70% of white Americans were independent farmers. In contrast only a fifth of Englishmen were. While it is true that farmers were more commerical in 1760 than in 1680 (53-54) it is not clear this makes them capitalist. Butler does not help by not defining or discussing what capitalism is. He states however that southern colonies took the lead in commericalizing agriculture (55-60). Since slave plantations were not as it turned out the wave of the future this complicates his definition of modernity, which is also not very well defined.

This chapter on religion is very good, since it is Butler's specialty as a historian, and there is much that will interest a beginning reader. Still, this is not a book that is as provacative or as original as it appears.

Rating:
Summary: Not as provocative as it appears
Review: Jon Butler's "Becoming America" offers a new perspective on revolution. Instead of arguing for the conservatism or the radicalism of the American revolution, Butler argues that there was a fundamental revolution in practices before 1776. In Butler's opinion the years 1680 to 1770 saw a revolutionary transformatiion in which the American colonies became modern in five major ways: ethnic diversity, modern market economies, modern participatory politics, modern consumerism and religious pluralism. (2) The relationship of this silent revolution to 1776 was very complex, but it could be said that "the American Revolution of 1763-1789 can rightly be called the first modern revolution, THE model for the French Revolution of 1789 and subseqently" onwards. (227)

In many ways this is a fine introduction to pre-1776 America. Butler is concise and his use of the secondary literature is very thorough. Problems, however, start with his chapter on ethnic diversity (8-49). For a start ethnic diversity is not a hallmark of modernity. The fact that more than 90% of Japan and Korea are of the same ethnic group does not make them less "modern" than India or Indonesia. Butler also underplays America's linguistic uniformity, where English among whites was overwhelming, in contrast to still Gaelic Ireland and still Welsh Wales. Actually the most modern thing about America's population was not its diversity but the rise of international migration, a process whose causes Butler says relatively little (22-23, 29). His discussuion of the African-American experience leads to another problem. His account of 18th century slavery (36-49), slave poverty (86-88, 136, 139-40) and slave religion (215-24) is based on the most thorough and recent research. Yet it is segregated from the larger American experience, as if slavery was something that only happened to black people, and not to the larger society as a whole. In other words, it is insufficiently dialectical (the same goes for Butler's view of women).

What about the modernity of the American economy? Butler has no clear account of demography, even though the American colonies had the fastest population growth rate in the world. White Americans were easily the most prosperous people in the world and Butler is quite right to note their superior literacy (111) and healthier diet (134-38). On the other hand America was 5% urban, compared to 20% for pre-revolutionary France and higher still for England. Butler offers many examples of American modernity, such as the booming power of merchants (68-74), the growth of public buildings (164-70), the rise of literary clubs and freemasonry (174-84). But these were largely urban affairs. What about the vast rural majority? Although many have viewed pre-1776 America as a hub a capitalism, in one important way it was not. 70% of white Americans were independent farmers. In contrast only a fifth of Englishmen were. While it is true that farmers were more commerical in 1760 than in 1680 (53-54) it is not clear this makes them capitalist. Butler does not help by not defining or discussing what capitalism is. He states however that southern colonies took the lead in commericalizing agriculture (55-60). Since slave plantations were not as it turned out the wave of the future this complicates his definition of modernity, which is also not very well defined.

This chapter on religion is very good, since it is Butler's specialty as a historian, and there is much that will interest a beginning reader. Still, this is not a book that is as provacative or as original as it appears.

Rating:
Summary: Pass on By!
Review: This "fresh new history of American society in the century before American Independence" is quite a stinker. It is poorly written, the chronology of events is fragmented, disparate. There is no sequential logic to many of the author's statements. There is no central tendency to his assertions. Worse, for all his prose and supposed analysis, I really do not think the author realizes why the break with England occurred.

For several hundred years the Crown simply ignored the colonies. This was a very distant land and, as a result, very autonomous from the get-go. What was built here, the value that was created, was built without much in the way of material help or direction from Britain. It was Britain's sudden attempt to control those several hundred years of value creation that caused the break. The war was of economic origin. Once Britain finally realized that value, serious value, existed here in the form of money, material and manpower, they thought they had found the mother load which would pay for more European wars and world conquest.

So, the colonies were taxed. Or were they? At the time of the revolution there were 26 British colonies in the Western Hemisphere, not just our 13. The 12 Caribbean colonies, at the time the richest colonies, were not taxed. This was the tinderbox which generated revolt.

It is difficult to understand how the author could miss this point. No other historian worth his or her salt has. This book was a very big disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Pass on By!
Review: This "fresh new history of American society in the century before American Independence" is quite a stinker. It is poorly written, the chronology of events is fragmented, disparate. There is no sequential logic to many of the author's statements. There is no central tendency to his assertions. Worse, for all his prose and supposed analysis, I really do not think the author realizes why the break with England occurred.

For several hundred years the Crown simply ignored the colonies. This was a very distant land and, as a result, very autonomous from the get-go. What was built here, the value that was created, was built without much in the way of material help or direction from Britain. It was Britain's sudden attempt to control those several hundred years of value creation that caused the break. The war was of economic origin. Once Britain finally realized that value, serious value, existed here in the form of money, material and manpower, they thought they had found the mother load which would pay for more European wars and world conquest.

So, the colonies were taxed. Or were they? At the time of the revolution there were 26 British colonies in the Western Hemisphere, not just our 13. The 12 Caribbean colonies, at the time the richest colonies, were not taxed. This was the tinderbox which generated revolt.

It is difficult to understand how the author could miss this point. No other historian worth his or her salt has. This book was a very big disappointment.