A New Segment: Daily Literature of Revolution

In order to induce more consistent blogging, I’ve planned this recurring section called Daily Literature of Revolution.  Shamelessly copying many other blogs, there will be a list of recent items from the news or the blogosphere.  I will then relate the primary item to its larger theme with links to books, academic scholarship, studies, court cases, white papers, etc.

The installment’s name comes from the first chapter of Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution ("The Literature of the Revolution").  I'll now gratuitously quote Mr. Bailyn to explain why I'm using his words for my title.  First, of course, the wonderful John Adams epigraph:

What do we mean by the Revolution?  The war?  That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it.  The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was [effected], from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.  The records of thirteen legislatures, the pamphlets, newspapers in all the colonies, ought to be consulted during that period to ascertain the steps by which the public opinion was enlightened and informed concerning the authority of Parliament over the Colonies.

-John Adams to Jefferson, 1815

Describing the leaders of this thought revolution, Bailyn remarks:

They wrote easily and amply, and turned out…a rich literature of theory argument, opinion and polemic.  Every medium of written expression was put to use.  The newspaper…were crowded with columns of arguments and counter-arguments appearing as letters, official documents, extracts of speeches, and sermons.  Broadsides…appeared everywhere; they could be found posted or passing from hand to hand in the towns of every colony. (p. 1).

These were not literary masterpieces.  The colonists had their Thomas Paine’s, but most of the pamphleteers were “amateurish."  Nonetheless, they compensated for “practiced technique” with great passion and purpose.  

Above all else, the Revolutionary writers aimed for “the communication of understanding”.  (p. 19).  They responded to the political and social “disturbances of the 1760s” by taking to their pens and presses; there they “sought to apply advanced principles of society and politics to their own immediate problems.”  (p. 20).  Bailyn praises this pre-Declaration of Independence period as the most radical, creative, and foundational of the American Revolution. (p. 21).

Simply put, waves of people used every resource possible to produce their own jeremiads against tyranny.  Simply put, no monolithic group designed the recipe for 1776.  It was a bottom-up, well-reasoned, pluralistic analysis of society.  And it just so happened to lead more and more people to the cause of liberty.

The circumstances of 20^th century media made this type of pamphleteering unfeasible.  (see FN 3, p. 2).  Today, the single-minded orthodoxy is crumbling.  Bloggers, fact-checkers, and independent reporters stalk the Internet.  Moreover, academic literature is easily accessible outside the Ivory Towers.  You don’t have to be in D.C. to watch the Cato Institute or Brookings’ latest conference.  And so on.  

Today, conditions are ripe for another multifarious discussion of society.  Soul-searching with references and citations.  Let the chips fall where they may.