THE SHAPING OF AMERICA: A People's History of the Young Republic, Vol. II

by Page Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 1979

The second offering in Smith's ""people's history,"" this volume, like its predecessor, earns its title by being accessible to the general reader rather than by demagoguery. In telling the story of the first half-century of the Republic Smith does include the Shays and Whiskey Rebellions and looks into the conditions of women and slaves, as well as the ""lower orders""; but he integrates these concerns into a complete historical panorama (unlike Howard Zinn's recent A People's History of the United States). Overall, he organizes the period from 1776 to 1826 around an American ""schizophrenia"" represented by two different views of people and government: on the one hand, the ""Classical-Christian"" view (represented by the Federalists) of the sinfulness and limitations of humanity; on the other, the ""Secular-Democratic"" belief (held by the Republicans) in the perfectability and genuine equality of mortals. The first view is realized in the Constitution, according to Smith, and is spelled out in the Federalist Papers, while the second inspired the Declaration and later became the ideology atop an essentially Classical-Christian polity. The election of 1800 and the defeat of the Federalists is the turning-point in Smith's account, really marking a watershed between the two views; and he uses the occasion to break his narrative with chapters on cities and the countryside, the family, religion, medicine, art, education, the west and the south, before resuming with the Presidency of Jefferson. Arguing that the period was one of growing rationalization in religion and mores, Smith describes ""our schizophrenia: we were to become the most powerful capitalist industrial power in the world under the banner of Jeffersonian agrarian democracy."" The opposition here, then, is basically the familiar one between Jefferson and Adams-Hamilton, and Smith's preference is clearly for the latter pair. But even if his division is overly schematic, Smith manages to incorporate all the major events of the first half-century, from Independence to Andrew Jackson, with a social-historian's eye for the everyday, and that makes this a very valuable contribution to our historical self-understanding.

Pub Date: Feb. 27, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION