This is a compelling commentary on Americans' history. One reading isn't enough. My takeaways are:
There is no destiny—-there are partially sustainable outcomes of both independent and coordinated actions of individuals and organizations.
The nether side of human nature is a permanent condition—-greed, evil, manipulation, power-seeking and dominance are prevailing human emotions.
All American settlers were at least partly lawless, viz. the treatment of Indians.
Sectional political discord has a very long history.
Politicians were never honorable or effective, seeking the broad public good was never a dominant motivation.
Read more on my blog: http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/ ( )

Dylan's Jokerman serves as a lens to view American History, in this volume 1585-1828. Two more to follow. Narrative drive often lost in the details but the details are worth it and the writing is sharp enough.

This book is a highly-readable and fresh look at well-known events and people, as well as the less-well known, including significant figures like Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, General Nathaniel Greene, and his enchanting wife Caty. McDougall is particularly scathing in his judgment of the military prowess of General Thomas Sullivan (who seems to be highly regarded in the western part of the state and in Pennsylvania). Names we may recognize but not place, such as the War of Jenkin's Ear, are quickly sketched and given a significance. In some cases where events are well known there is little narrative—the battles of the Revolutionary War or King Phillips War, but there is enough to get a good sense of the event and the larger context. Perhaps that is what McDougall does best—to place people and events in a context.
New Jersey, as usual, gets short shrift, but this is not all about Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, either. He does work in a few events in most of the colonies, although usually in so few words as to gloss over any subtleties. The disputes in this colony over quit rents and land titles is not really mentioned, although it was at the core of colonial politics for a generation and certainly had implications for the Crown's dealings with the colony.
It is not altogether an uplifting account, as his narrative is rife with bribery, cronyism, collusion, all kinds of sharp-dealings, as well as brutality and cheating, especially of Indians. But we knew that, of course; it just plays a more central role in McDougall's account.
Too much emphasis is placed on the Masonic connections, in my opinion, and too little on the rich texture of local politics, which often had a disproportionate impact on national politics because of the way senators were chosen. He gives much emphasis to the role of religion (maybe too much), as well as its place in American society, apart from any role in economic and community development. In that respect, he does not seem to take cognizance of the low percentage of religious affiliation in the decades before 1820—one might be left with the impression that church membership was always high, even if members were not usually pious or observant.
The author notes the astonishing fecundity of the settlers and the rapid growth in population of the western and border states between 1790 and 1830; it was not just the coastal cities that were growing through immigration but "natural" increase due to the large families and (apparently) decreasing infant mortality.McDougall is clearly an admirer of Hamilton and critical of Jefferson, who comes across as lazy, highly political, and unprincipled. To his credit, there is nothing of Jefferson's liaison with his slave which generally seems to be the center of much contemporary interpretation of the man.
He places America's foreign activities, land purchases, wars and economic development in a context of European (mostly English and French, of course) activity, but there is too little on the impact of the West Indies, especially the Barbadian connections. He offers less emphasis on the "democratic" impulse in the western territories and states— those opposed to authority, patronage and pretensions, and more on party politics and the influence of specific personalities. Thus, it seems to me he leaves the impression that abolitionist sentiment arose out of nowhere in the form of an amendment to a bill admitting Missouri as a state. In this he skips over the role of the agitators, churches of the north, and the reforming classes.
The book includes an unusually good account of the development of regional economies—mining, tobacco & cotton, canal-building, and the railroads, and of the machinations that often went into raising capital, borrowing, and obtaining charters, subsidies, and monopolies. The precarious financial condition of most states, as well as men of great estates, is a sub-theme. If the role of debt has not been examined by scholars of the early Republic, this work suggests it would be a good lode to mine.
One particular revelation to me is that midwestern states—Indiana, Ohio, Illinois—were substantially settled by southerners; McDougall says of Indiana, "a northern state settled by southerners posing as westerners." Yet parts of these states were centers of the Free Soil/anti-slavery movement by the 1850s, a period not treated in this volume of what is intended to be a three volume work. Professor McDougall is off to an auspicious start. If you are interested in giving just one book on American history to a serious reader, today this is the book to give. ( )

Among other topics, McDougall covers the slave trade. He points out that "the total number of people taken in Africa [with destinations to both North and South America] was about 11 million, and about 9.5 million survived the journey." Think about it: 1.5 MILLION died just on the way over. He also notes that "slavery had the unanticipated but welcome effect of relieving [Virginia's] social class tensions." He writes, "The use of African labor reduced the 'army of poor whites' problem even as it united all whites against a new racial group occupying the lowest rung on the social scale." On the so-called Protestant ethic, McDougall observes that "Non-Conformists and Dissenters of all sorts were forbidden even to assemble in numbers greater than five. They were also banned from professions such as law, education, and politics. That, more than the famed Protestant ethic, may explain why so many Disserters went into business." [c.f. the great number of Jews in the banking and money lending industries because most other occupations were not open to them and subsequent "conclusion" by others that Jews gravitated toward these professions because they "preferred" them.] McDougall documents the shock of the American colonists when the British decided to honor Indian treaties and moreover, to forbid removal of Indians from land coveted by the colonists. This betrayal, McDougall suggests, fueled the revolutionary fires. McDougall makes lots of other good and interesting points; the trick is to get past the first chapter, which I hated. But it was short, and I stuck it out, and I'm glad to have done so. (JAF)