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Summary: The story of Declaration of Independence
Review: The Declaration of Independence holds a revered and honored place in our national lexicon of important American historical documents. But what makes a document that is well over two hundred years old command such respect. Pauline Maier sets out to tell the story of the Declaration of Independence, from the circumstances to surrounding its writing, to the documents that influenced its text, to how the Declaration came to be held in such high esteem. Maier begins her story on the eve of the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and tells the story of how the Congress was moved toward independence by June and July 1776. She explains how Jefferson came to be the author of the Declaration and what documents influenced his writing. She also places the Declaration within the broader context of other "declarations of independence" being made by individual states during this time period. After Jefferson had completed his text, Maier illustrates the changes that both the draft committee and the Congress as a whole made to the document. Her final chapter deals with how American attitudes toward the Declaration changed between 1776 and the Civil War concluding with how Abraham Lincoln changed the Declaration into a living, breathing historical document.Maier's account of the Declaration of Independence is extremely well researched and well written. Maier has obviously done a lot of research - especially into the area of the "declarations" attached to the state constitutions begin written at the time. This was an angle of research that I had not seen before and it was interesting to see how the Declaration of Independence was both alike and different from the others. Maier's account is very readable and her writing is easy to follow. If you are looking for a readable, one-volume account of the story of the Declaration of Independence then look no forward. I would recommend this book to both students who have some background on the subject as well as the average person looking for some more information about their nation's history.
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Summary: read Carl Becker too
Review: This book was published to great applause last year and purported to offer a revolutionary (pardon the pun) new interpretation of the Declaration of Independence. Let me first say that the author has done a great job of presenting the story of the drafting of the Declaration and the political milieu out of which the action arose and of following its fall and supposed resurrection by Abraham Lincoln. However, as near as I can determine the following elements of Ms Maier's analysis were considered original: (1) unlike Carl Becker, whose classic study "The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas" focused on the ideas underlying the declaration, she focuses on the mechanics of the legislative process that produced it; (2) she reveals that the Declaration did not actually declare our independence, that had been done two days earlier, it explained why independence was declared; (3) she's discovered that Thomas Jefferson was not the sole author of the text & the ideas therein are not solely his; (4) in fact, those ideas were so prevalent that there are nearly 100 other Declarations by the Colonies and townships that contain similar sentiments & some are even better written; and (5) our interpretation of the Declaration differs from that of Jefferson and the men who voted for it. I'll take these one at a time: (1) As historians look back, one of, if not the only, notable acts of the Clinton years will be the Welfare Reform Act. It will be viewed as significant because it marks the beginning of the retreat from the New Deal/Great Society Welfare State. This importance is fundamentally intellectual and will be written about as such. But someone will surely also write about how the idea was first tried in Wisconsin and Michigan and how Clinton didn't really support it but felt he had to go along and how some Democrats felt trapped into supporting it, etc. This is the book that Ms Maier has written--it's about sausage making, not a look at the sausage. (2) This would seem to be a nod to point one. The Declaration is important for its ideas, not for what it physically did. (3 & 4) This is exactly the point of Becker's book; that there was a rich stew of ideas, familiar to all men of the time, & Jefferson and his fellow drafters and the Congress all drew upon them for the Declaration. (5) Of course our opinions differ 220+ years later. But isn't the genius of Jefferson and the drafters that they wrote a document that encompasses our evolving views and justifies them still? Isn't it possible that men who owned slaves & withheld the vote from women & the unpropertied rose above themselves & bequeathed us a document that made inevitable the sorts of democratic progress that followed? Isn't that why this document lives & breathes today & why we study it? I think the reason that Ms Maier misses many of these points is a function of the same ethos that created Picasso, Joyce & Alban Berg--the determination to distance their fields from the average citizen in the same way that science has become distanced through specialization. The Declaration is accessible to all of us & we can read it & determine it's meanings for ourselves. So what historians increasingly do in such situations is delve into the minutiae of the times, & garner information that none of the rest of us will ever see. Then they turn around and use this "secret" knowledge as a key which provides them with the unique background to discover "hidden" meanings in events. This is largely a hoax, in the same way that atonal music or cubism or free association is; we needn't buy into it. The genius of the Declaration is that it means exactly what it says: We hold these truths to be self-evident, That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... Ms Maier's book is a valuable addition to the scholarship on the Declaration, but is less groundbreaking than the hype suggests. GRADE: B+ The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (Carl Becker) GRADE: A-
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Summary: Wonderfully Informative and Elegant
Review: This is a great book. Of course, you must be interested in The Declaration of Independence. I didn't find it boring at all, it was facinating how you journey from the town declarations, to the big one we all know. It also explains very nicely how the DofI has been viewed throughout US history. We used this information in a constitution competition, and came in 4th place in the entire nation.
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